Harry Potter and the Supreme Hydra
by Kazakh Doom
Summary: Harry's a werewolf, courtesy of Greyback. Set on Sfär. Sister fanfic of "Avengers: Lost in Lycanthropy"
1. Chapter 1

These woods are dark and quiet. Not a cricket chirps.

Many trees are bare. If not, their leaves are so green, they're almost black. Here and there, an owl hoots. A wolf howls...

Here and there, fallen logs lie. Mushrooms sprout from them...

Leaves cover most of the ground. They're gradually becoming the soil of this forest...

As a she-wolf forages, she steps on a twig. Its echo can be heard far and wide. At least no one rallies to its sound. Rather, everything in this forest runs from it, if they can tell what caused it to snap...

She's surrounded by the security of her pack. If only her alpha would show up to do that every once in a while...

Most of these wolves are either blonde or red. Most are female...and enhanced.

This female raises her nose, and smells the air. She smells something. It smells good. It smells like food...

She follows it. Up ahead, there's a dead rabbit lying up against the base of a tree trunk. Her stomach growls. She creeps up on it, and scoops it up in her jaws...

Ouch; that hurt. She whimpers, as sharp points go into the roof of her mouth. She staggers back...but realizes she's stuck. Something's got her bound...

She looks around. The rabbit is gone. She's been caught. A human, or wizard, has left a baited wolfsangel tied to a tree, for her and her packmates' consumption...

Near her, her fellow wolves flee. They leave her for the humans...it seems...

While struggling, the wolfsangel's chain releases a green rocket into the sky. Aloft, it explodes, and leaves a glowing signal in the sky...

The signal takes the shape of a green glowing cloud, that takes the shape of an octopus-like creature. Its tentacles writhe...

Before she knows it, three black horses have arrived. Simultaneously, they dismount. One at a time, they draw weapons. They close in on the she-wolf, from behind.

It's Living Laser, Red Skull, and Scorcher...of Hydra. Living Laser is made of a red-glowing photon-based energy. Scorcher wears an exosuit that's got flamethrowers to spare. Red Skull is a wraith. In certain lights...or, as he wills it...his all-red head can be seen through the hood of his wraith's cloak.

Stuck to the wolfsangel, the she-wolf whimpers more, and struggles more...hurting herself more. Red Skull approaches in a creepy fashion, and reaches forth, with his mummified hands...

From out of nowhere, a black he-wolf teleports. He lacks eyes, and bears a green-glowing, lightning bolt-shaped scar across the part of his head where his eyes would be.

He wedges himself in between his pack female, and the Hydra men who dare threaten her. Fangs bared, he barks a warning shot.

The assault is on. Living Laser fires his lasers, getting brighter to do so. Scorcher generates flame, and nearly sets the woods on fire. Red Skull hovers away and observes from a distance, waiting to sense the alpha's Achilles heel...if he has one...besides his lack of eyesight, that is...

With a combination of wolf speed, acrobatics, and teleportation, Harry Potter dodges the Living Laser's lasers and Scorcher's fires. At some point, both Hydra warriors will tire...

When they do, Harry uses his legilimency. He raids all three warriors' minds...and finds that all three of them have VERY trying pasts.

Living Laser self-detonates, clearing over a hectare of forest. Cornered in this wraith's body, and not being able to maintain it like this, Red Skull retreats, and flies away.

From his scar, Harry shoots a green laser of his own...and shatters Scorcher's exosuit. Now it's wearer, Steven Hudak, is exposed and vulnerable.

He lies on his back, surrounded by the ruins of his armor. Harry teleports right over him, and takes his throat in his jaw. He bites down. Hudak suffocates more and more by the moment...

Back at the tree, the she-wolf whimpers louder, and shakes her head. Via legilimency, Harry reads her mind. She's begging him not to kill this Hydra warrior.

Throat still in his jaws, Harry nods once...and releases the poor bastard's throat. Instead, he backs away, and starts nipping at the man's heels, hocks, and flanks...as if he were a sheep, and Harry a sheepdog.

Interesting; we've all heard of a wolf in sheep's clothing. But this time, the wolf is actually mimicking a sheepdog, rather than a sheep...

Hudak gets up, and starts running. Harry bites into his leg, and teleports away. He leaves Hudak somewhere far from here, without his armor, and teleports away. In Harry's absence, Hudak topples over, and broods over his sore throat and lower leg...

Harry teleports back, and attends to his baited she-wolf. By now, the rest of the pack has arrived.

One of the pack females, Ororo Munroe, summons a rain. She keeps it around until Scorcher's fires die. Once they're dead, the rains leave.

In the sky, the rains soon erode the green cloud to nothing. A pox upon Hydra, for trying to mimic the Dark Mark...

All around the other she-wolves shake themselves dry. Harry does, too.

A red she-wolf, Medusa, attends the blonde one, and helps her off the hook. With prehensile fur...and the perfect dexterity that comes with it, she simply unhooks Patsy from the wolfsangel, lowers her, and sheds her over-long fur, once the job's done.

Another blonde wolf, Carol Danvers, arrives, generates an atomic ball of fire in her jaws, and spits it, destroying the wolfsangel once and for all. She howls, once she's finished.

The blonde wolf that got caught, Patsy Walker, is actually a beech marten. And she's a bit of a quick healer, thankfully.

The wolves check up on one another. All are in good shape...including Patsy Walker, the marten who got caught. With their alpha in the lead, they run back through the forest. They find the pack, and rejoin the hunt.

Once, their alpha was a boy wizard, named Harry Potter. It was often rumored that he was destined to slay a great wizard villain; the darkest of all time. But then, something happened to Harry along the way. His name is Fenrir Greyback...and his bite was, and still is, MUCH worse than his howl...


	2. Chapter 2

Deep in the forest, there's a cave. Its opening is guarded by a pair of small stone statues.

Inside, an old male wolf lies on some hay. He's attended to, by many females.

A blonde one wanders in, through a tunnel, balancing five stacked stones on her rump. She's got a music record in her jaws.

She stops at a phonograph, and drops the record on the turntable. With her jaws, she sets the needle. In moments, it plays classical jazz music. Nearby, the old male wolf pounds his tail, and howls at a low volume.

From the cave opening, a tiny weasel slides into the doorway. She enlarges herself, and becomes an auburn wolf. Her name is Janet. She announces Harry, her pack's alpha.

The old wolf rolls over on his side, and shows his underside, permitting Harry's entry.

Janet shrinks back to a weasel, and speeds back up the opening. Moments later, Harry slides into the cave. He's black, eyeless, and his scar doesn't shine...or burn. It shouldn't; he's in the company of a mentor.

This is Remus, or Moony, an old pack alpha. Once, he too was a boy wizard...much longer ago than Harry. Like Harry, Greyback bit him, too. Moony didn't even get to go to magic school.

In this cave, there's another red wolf. Her fur is rather long. Medusa, as she's called, generates a tentacle of her fur, and uses it to turn down the volume of the record player, so that Moony and Harry can interact. She sheds the hair as soon as she's done with it.

"Patsy fell for another hook," Harry tells Moony. "The Hydra Coven's gotten more devious."

"You must protect us," Moony urges him. "I am not sure for how much longer I can be this pack's ace in the hole."

"For the record," Harry tells him, "I don't think you're a failure."

"It doesn't matter if I'm not. All these bitches have to do is see me stumble once...and they're all over you like flies on dead flesh."

"That's impossible to believe. I wore glasses, before Greyback."

Silence follows. For many moments, no one dares speak, or move.

"We need to get closer to the enemy," Moony recommends, "and see what they're plotting. We're powerless, if we don't know how to defend ourselves."

"So far, Parks, Schmidt, and Hudak are the only ones we've faced. Alas, I dread their numbers grow. Or rather, their dark magic grows. More may come..."

"I believe you. Just keep it within sight...but do not attack it without rallying the pack."

"I won't. I didn't choose this life...but I'm still your protégé."

"Good. I always hoped your father didn't make a mistake when he reproduced with your mother after magic school." He sighs. "HE was the only one of the four of us who did, I'm afraid."

Harry shrugs. "We're not all meant to breed."

"Thank you for your report, Harry. Now, don't you have some she-wolves to attend to?"

Harry wags his tail. "VERY much so, Remus." With that, Harry bows, turns, and feels his way back up the opening. Janet's a weasel, and snoozing in the nice raven fur on his rump...

Inside, the she-wolves snicker. Moony yawns, and tries to rest.


	3. Chapter 3

Welcome to the Castle Parkinson. (It's...not a very GOOD name, is it?)

Out front, there are many statues of serpents, all grey, which appear to guard the façade. One of them, at least, is a Persian cobra. None of these statues have ever been animated, thankfully. But then, simple wizards often make the mistake of assuming that such sculptures are only good for PREDICTABLE magic...

All over the landscaping, green plants overdevelop. Some bear white flowers. Mostly, they all relax. Mostly, it's cool here, and the irrigation works overtime.

Along the damp sidewalk, a femme fatale walks. She's in a very dark green translucent robe, and matching lingerie-which, BTW, is NOT translucent...or even transparent. Otherwise, there IS a limit to this pureblood witch's balls...as much as she sometimes hates to say so.

Meet Pansy. She wears her raven hair in a glossy bob. If not for her family's pureblood supremacist standards, she'd wear more tattoos, and become more Gothic. But since she must set a standard for refinement and fashion in Old Aryan wizardry, she chooses instead to keep her skin ink-free, and only pierce the conservative parts of her body; the ears, mainly.

For her, the sky stays overcast. Every now and then, a light rain falls.

In the shadows, just inside the grey steel fence, Harry teleports. He still can't believe the Parkinsons don't use anti-teleportation charms...

Around the estate, Harry's presence is sensed. In response, a trinity of salt-and-pepper hyena-like magical creatures, of which two of them are named Hammer and Anvil, corner him...

The fur rises on Harry's back. He bares his fangs, and barks. He can't see, but he can hear and smell. He won't like what's coming...

Alas, Pansy teleports into the midst of their arrowhead formation. "Away with you," she commands.

With disappointed expressions, Hammer, Anvil, and Tongs lumber off. At long last, Pansy is alone with Harry.

She carries him to a sheltered spot, and grooms him. She enchants a brush, which brushes his fur by itself. She leaves him, and returns with a suckling Muggle infant, in a roast pan. Harry wolfs it down...no pun intended.

"I added a potion to it," Pansy tells him. "_Potions Weekly_ says it's a slight improvement of the Wolfsbane Potion...although not a reliable replacement."

For this, Harry transforms into a human. He's in the buff, and blind. As his wolf counterpart doesn't, he has no eyes or eye sockets. And there's a lightning-shaped scar where his eyes should be.

Pansy hands him some shorts; they're green, with silver trim. Personally, she loves him when he's naked...but she understands why he won't stay that way around her.

Harry catches a boomslang snake slithering over his shoulder. He freezes, and watches it flick its tongue...

Pansy scoffs, and picks it off of him. "Sorry," she says, banishing it to one of the dungeons. "It's one of the Crouches'. I'm...watching their boomslangs for them."

"Right," Harry mutters, dressing. "They're the Crouches. They like brewing Polyjuice Potion...however legal that isn't."

Pansy shrugs, and grins. "They're just trying to make wizardry a better place...in their own special way."

Harry scoffs. "For better or worse, I'm sure. Anyhew, rumor has it there are some Muggle terrorists afoot," she tells Harry, combing his raven hair with her hand. "Rumor also has it that they've met a wolf who's better than their wolfsangels."

Nearby, a tufted titmouse lands on a limb. He's grey; a color Pansy really likes...

"Remus has got to put on a show, every now and then." He drinks from a silver goblet of pumpkin juice she offers him. The goblet is emerald-jeweled and serpent-designed. "He can't afford to let the Wood think he's stumbling."

She grins. "I don't recall bringing him up."

"These Muggles are bad. They've got skills. They almost caught one of my bitches...on a wolfsangel. I dread they'll try more than again soon."

Pansy yawns. "How big is your pack? You keep telling me the same number, but I keep forgetting it."

Harry scoffs. "And I thought the silver shad in your pond were forgetful."

Around the house, the noise from a teleportation echoes throughout the estate. Harry hears this, and teleports away. Pansy stands, and bewitches Harry's trace to clean up after itself. She rushes through the castle, and greets her husband at the door.

Meet Caleb Goldstein. Don't let his foreign name fool you; he is very much a...half-blood. And as the Semitic quality of his name suggests, he has a very useful mind. All day, he casts advanced charms for wizards who're like animals to him, considering how naïve they are in contrast to him.

Before him, his wife sits on a railing, and slides down the stairs. They're huge, tall, and green-and-silver-upholstered.

She leaps off the railing, lands before Caleb, embraces him, and kisses him. Thankfully, he's just barely had a chance to levitate his robe into the closet.

Caleb likes to dress in blue and brown. Pansy loved a lot of men at her old magic school who wore those colors. Many of them were on the Quidditch team. Caleb still loves his Quidditch...but doesn't get to play it as often.

"There are some sinister Muggles prowling around," he tells her. "I often doubt I can always trust my magic to protect me from them."

She pinches the side of his neck. "Don't be such a pessimist. You're a half-blood who's married to a pureblood, and a fine fucking one. My family has expectations; I wouldn't have married you if you were so much as less than what I need."

Caleb scoffs. "I'm sure you would've married me if I was a Squib, too."

"Of course." She pinches his cheek. "I could never refuse a fellow pureblood a favor...Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, or Hufflepuff."

He smells the air. "The house smells good. Have you been cooking?"

She shrugs. "Just a muggle infant. It tastes like veal. I might actually like it more than a Gryffindor infant."

Caleb arches his brows. "Well...if you get tired of infants, I've seen a lot of scary muggles out there, lately. If you still like poaching them, I'd have your back if you poached THEM."

Pansy turns, and flaps her bob. "What's the matter, Caleb? Are you suddenly too wizardane to poach muggles? You and your old Ravenclaw buddies are usually wizardane, I can see, but... What exactly is it that you see in Slytherin witch types?"

With her ring-clad hands, she caresses her hips. Caleb can see her cleavage through her translucent black robe.

"Why bother to chase us all the way," she flirts, "if you can't follow us all the way?"

Caleb sighs, and shrugs. "I can try. But I'd be risking an awful lot if the Ministry caught me."

From a dungeon below, a boa constrictor slithers up to the ground floor. She wedges herself between Caleb and Pansy, freaking Caleb out. She coils up, and lies between them, flicking her tongue up at Caleb...

Terrified, Caleb gapes down at the constrictor. As much as he loves Pansy, he's STILL not used to her snake-affinity...

Pansy scoffs. "_The Ministry_," she grumbles. "I seem to remember a time, at Hogwarts, when you and your Ravenclaw buddies hated discipline so much, that you would all team up against Filch just to keep one of your own from having to suffer the weight of one of his detentions." She shrugs. "He doesn't even hang students up by their thumbs in the dungeons anymore! Even I hate him for that!"

Below, the constrictor still looks up, giving Caleb what seems like a malevolent stare. She seems rather moody, in her own coils...

Caleb shrugs. "Well... I suppose there is more than one Ravenclaw dark wizard in Azkaban... Again, I'll try. I'd just...hate to widow you."

"Whatever you choose to do, my love." She glides over to him, and pecks him on the neck. From between them, the constrictor slithers away, and returns to her lair.

"I don't need a strong husband," Pansy continues. "Just a half-blood of good stock. Now," she caresses his midriff, "I do believe you're hungry. Go upstairs, and I will do my best to repeat my success with the muggle infant. I'll do one even better; I'll teleport it to a muggle synagogue and back, just so you can say it's kosher." She hesitates. "What IS kosher, by the way?"

He shrugs. "Some sort of white magic that my ancestors once practiced in the Levant. A lot of muggles died from the food that they ate, so we used that magic to cauterize it for them. But if you asked the muggles, they'd say that some great wizard named Yahweh conjured it up for them."

Pansy scoffs. "Yahweh?!' What kind of name is THAT for a wizard...even a Semitic one?!"

"It's high-tech; a lot of my relative's habits are... Anyway, I'll be upstairs. By the way, I passed Hammer, Tongs, and Anvil on the way in. They seem depressed. Funny; it seems that almost every time I see them, they're either laughing, or in high spirits. Could be just me..."

With that, Caleb ascends the stairs. Pansy teleports into the kitchen, and cooks up another Muggle infant...

From behind her, Harry cuddles with her, as she cooks. He caresses the fat silver ring on her hand. It's designed like a pair of serpents encircling one another, and jeweled with an emerald.

"This can't be your wedding ring," Harry croons in her ear. "His would be a bronze eagle, with a sapphire."

"Or cheaper," she admits. "But you know, sometimes I just can't prune myself from my roots."

"I don't blame you. By the way; do you EVER wear your wedding ring?"

She shrugs. "At parties. And whenever I have guests over. And whenever the Ministry has paperwork for me to fill out. (NO mercy there, BTW.) Really, though, he's just an ornamental possession." She turns her head, and kisses him on the lips. "My family would never forgive me if I ever married a half-blood or a werewolf."

"I don't mean to be either of those things."

"I know. But the world doesn't change just because you hate it. And some of my relatives hate it more than Salazar Slytherin probably did...WITH Muggles and half-bloods to look down upon."

"You're a good wife to him. I'd hate for him to get killed by those Muggles I fought in the woods."

"Well even if he does," she pinches his cheek, and slaps it. "That's what I've got you and your pack for. I just know you'll rip those Muggles to shreds like no dark wizard who's ever come before. Could you summon me the wolfsbane, as long as you don't have to change?"

Harry sighs, and levitates the wolfsbane into Pansy's hand, with a simple charm. Harry loves Pansy a lot...but sometimes, she can be quite the slithering Slytherin...

Below, in the dungeons, there are more snakes where the boomslang and constrictor came from. There are eight of them...and their aquariums are branded with the Hydra octopus.


	4. Chapter 4

Welcome to the Castle Schwartz. For many centuries, it's been the main home of the Schwartz wizarding family.

The front gate is chrome, and metal. It's got serpent designs within it. Some of the serpents have jade eyes. A wall of grey stone surrounds the estate.

In a drove, many sinister-looking autos pull up to the gate, and park. Some of them bear the Hydra octopus for a hood ornament.

One at a time, Hydra's officials dismount. Within the gate, a house-elf teleports, casts a spell, and opens the gate.

One by one, the autos drive in. The house-elf appears here and there, telling everyone where to park. Some of them are frightened, by the sight of a house-elf. Most of them are Muggles.

Beneath the shadowy façade, the doors open. In single file, and dressed in robes, the officials of Hydra march in, ascend the stairs, and encircle a long table in a wardroom.

The interior décor is mostly green and silver. Cauldrons, both ornamental and useful, sit here and there, as do such goblets.

Cho Chang, the lady of the house, brews a potion in the kitchen. She's wary of her husband's guests. She's not sure how she feels about having Muggle guests in the Castle Schwartz while her husband's on watch. One thing she does know that if her husband's inviting Muggles over, that can't be a good omen...

Staggered, different family banners hang on the wall just above the stairs; the Schwartz family of the German states, the Black family of England, and the Zwart family of the Netherlands, to name a few. The Schwartz family has been a bit pan-Germanic.

Simultaneously, the members of the Hydra High Council take their seats. The head of the table is left vacant. Many Hydra heads have come. They're all loyal to the cause.

This is Gerald Richter. Or, so it SEEMS. He might not be who he seems... He might not even be a man...

This is Ophelia Sarkissian/Viper. She's Karelian, and sinisterly blonde and green-eyed. By wizardry's standards, she's a witch and potioneer. By Hydra's standards, she's a mutant who can generate toxins.

Over her shoulder, a boomslang hangs, by its coils. Viper smiles, and caresses her precious boomslang, with long and polished fingers.

This is Valentina Allegra de Fontaine/Contessa Valentina. She's South Tyrolian, and a bit of a Blackshirt. Once, she was a SHIELD agent, who called herself Agent 14. Nowadays, of course, SHIELD's put a very generous bounty on her head.

This is Silvio Manfredi/Silvermane. He's a cyborg. Like the Contessa, he's South Tyrolian, too. Some of his smaller prosthetics can't seem to stop moving. If Cho wasn't so afraid of all of them, she'd ask how his prosthetics work.

This is Richard Fisk. He wears a white coat, carries a cane, has blond hair, and wears green shades.

This is Uda Vermis/Spider-Woman. She's from Saarland.

This is Daniel Whitehall/Kraken. He's English. He's also the Council's local resource...where Muggles are concerned.

This is Tomi Shishido/Gorgon. Yes, he's from Japan. By wizardry's standards, he's a wizard, whose wand has a basilisk pupil core. By Hydra's, he's a mutant who can turn folks into stone by looking them in the eye. For that, he wears shades. Rumor has it he's gifted with katanas.

This is Elisa Sinclair/Madame Hydra. She's from Vermont. She's the High Council's liaison between Hydra and British wizardry...despite being a Vermonter. She's also time-displaced, from the 19th century.

This is Johann Fennhoff/Dr. Faustus. He's a psychiatrist from Vienna. If Cho wasn't so afraid of him, she'd ask him what psychiatry is.

This is Arnim Zola. He's an AI, uploaded into a synthezoid. His physical body died decades ago. Hydra considers his mind too precious to waste.

This is Edgar Lascombe. He's created, and now commands, the Hydra Four: Bowman, Militant, Hammer, and Tactical Force.

Here, the council sits and waits. On the wall above the head chair, a moving painting of Phineas Nigellus Black hangs. At times, Nigellus shares the Council's impatience. At others, he yawns, and snoozes in his frame.

Cho interrupts them, and serves them some wine. Most of them seem to appreciate her company; Shishido especially...or at least until he finds out that she's Chinese-Briton; NOT Japanese-Briton, as he'd hoped... Even so, it's good for him to meet someone who reminds him a bit of home.

Sarkissian, Fontaine, Vermis, and Sinclair all seem to despise her. Richter does, too...for some odd reason... They don't say anything; then again, where Cho comes from, they don't really have to. The head of Slytherin House at Hogwarts, when Cho was there, was more civil than they are. Then again, she's probably just a girl, as are Sinclair, Fontaine, Vermis, and Sarkissian...

"This wine has aged in the dungeons for many centuries," she tells them. "Some of them have been amended with aging charms, but this one hasn't."

Manfredi smacks his lips. "It's a real jewel, Signora Black. _Grazie_."

Cho almost asks him to call her Ms. Chang... But decides against it.

Cho takes her leave, just as the Supreme Hydra arrives. For this, all rise.

Nigellus takes awhile...but in his painting, he rises too. He could afford to lose a few pounds...

Slowly, the Supreme Hydra circles them. He takes off his gloves. Beneath them, he wears several silver rings. Some of them have emeralds in them. One is shaped like a pair of snakes devouring one another.

He takes his seat, at the head of the table. He remains standing for a bit, just to test the Council's stamina.

Behind him, Nigellus falls over in his chair, within his painting. The Supreme Hydra grins, as if subtly insulting British wizardry.

At last, he sits. They sit. The Supreme Hydra removes his shades, revealing the face of Hydra Supreme.

Meet Stefan Rüdiger. Once, he was a supersoldier, and a warrior of Fribourg. In his military career, he clashed with a few Rommels. Recently, he's gotten a promotion. He's now the Supreme Hydra; its highest head. Cut him off, and two shall take his place.

Rüdiger drums his fingers on the grey table wood. All around, the High Council anticipates his first judgment of the evening...

"So," Rüdiger comments, "THIS is what British wizardry consider nobility..." He arches his brows. "It's not bad. I half-expected there to be ghosts haunting this place..."

A ghost's head pops up through the table, startling them. He smiles, and welcomes them to the Castle Schwartz.

All around, and above, the many ghosts of the Castle Black fly in and out of the room, via the walls. A lot of the muggle members of the Council sit petrified in their seats-and NOT because Shishido accidentally took off his shades. Even some of the mutants are timid...

Richter has turned into a naked blue lady, with red hair. Everyone's so terrified of the ghosts, no one has noticed...

Cho creeps in, and summons the ghosts out. They come at her beckoning. She apologizes, and slips away. All around, the High Council draws easy breaths...

Before anyone can see him, Richter changes back into himself...or rather, the self he's presenting to Hydra. He looks around, reaching to adjust his top...until he remembers he's not a woman anymore. It doesn't look like anybody saw him change...

"Spooked me, too," Rüdiger admits. He narrows his eyes, and points a finger at all of them. "Don't any of you dare go getting any ideas!"

"HAIL HYDRA," they all shout.

Rüdiger smiles, and rests his finger. "Good Council. Now," he sips the wine that Cho left for him. He, too, seems to like it. "What is this, that everyone here's been harassing me about, concerning a wolf infestation?" He looks around. "Who'd like to go first?"

Whitehall stands. "They're werewolves, your Supremacy. They're wizards who change into wolves, depending on emotional phases they go through. They've been resisting our attempts to control them."

Rüdiger arches his brows. "Sounds like a challenge." He clenches his fist, and his eyes light up, evil green. "On behalf of Hydra...I accept." He raises his arm. "Hail Hydra!"

They all raise their same arm. "HAIL HYDRA!"

Downstairs, Cho stirs the potions, and shakes her head. As much as she usually loves muggles, THESE Muggles still give her the creeps...

Arnim Schwartz, her husband, hugs her from behind. Lately, it's gotten harder and harder for Cho to rest easy in her husband's grasp...


	5. Chapter 5

Today, the sun rises slower than usual. And it's red.

In a meadow, a niffler lies. He's as cold as stone. He IS stone.

Ernie McMillan, a local pack alpha, knows this niffler very well. He also knows it well enough to know that it wasn't a stone before. As a matter of fact, he had an affinity for it...at least as a man.

Ernie's a man now. He drags his finger across all the niffler's stony parts, and sighs. He loved this niffler. To him, it was almost like a house-elf...

From nearby, a badger lumbers. He stops by the petrified niffler, and caresses its beak with his nose...

Nearby, some of Ernie's pack females brood. One's still a wolf. Another's a woman.

Harry, still a man, teleports into view. Without sight, he asks what's going on.

The badger hisses, raises the fur on his back, and snarls.

Harry smiles, and scoffs. "Oh. Hi, Ernie."

The badger lunges, and tackles Harry. He's quite strong, for a badger.

Some of Harry's pack females arrive, and bark the badger away. He hisses, and snarls, and takes a few shots at them with his paw. But by and by, the badger does retreat.

Harry stands, and straightens himself out. Ernie approaches him.

"Sorry about that, Ernie," Harry brushes himself off. "What's...?"

Ernie punches Harry in the face. Shocked, Harry feels his own face, for blood.

"I KNEW you were the heir of Slytherin, you fucking backstabber! Now one of our niffler's is petrified!"

"Ernie, I told you: I CAN'T PETRIFY ANYTHING. I can brew potions that can do that, and sometimes, I can transfigure animals into statues, but..."

"This niffler made me a billionaire! Do you know how rare those are, among wolves?!"

Harry chuckles. "You seem to be overreacting. Does anyone actually EXPECT a werewolf to be richer than a wizard?"

Ernie sighs. "We're not just werewolves, Harry. We're a fucking race. And the wizards think they're superior to us. It's the number one duty of a werewolf to prove himself just as good as wizards! And sometimes, that means taking paths that we've never taken before. Do you really think the wizarding world would be as humane as it is, if no one ever blazed a new trail?"

"Well... We've still got pureblood supremacists, if THAT'S what you're mad at..."

Ernie sighs. "You're still missing the point. But then, of course you would. You were born perfect!"

Harry points at his face, eyeless and scarred. "Does THIS look eugenic to you?!"

"Just stay away from our nifflers, Harry! They're not your lab rats. We protect them. If we don't, that doesn't make us any different from your aunt and uncle!"

"My aunt and uncle never tortured anybody. Just me."

"EXACTLY! In all your purity, you don't even lust for revenge for yourself! You're a disgrace to the name of Hufflepuff! And to think that your only request to the Sorting Hat was to not be in Slytherin!"

"I'm not a Hufflepuff."

Ernie sighs. "Come near one of my nifflers again, and you'll be banned from next year's Midautumn Eve Hunt."

With that, Ernie's females roll the niffler onto a stretcher, and haul it back to the den.

Hours pass. The heat from the attack on the Niffler starts to die...

Underground, the stone niffler is in a hospital bed of its own. As his new usual, he doesn't move...

A bug with wings flies in circles around its bill, and lands on his chest. A closer look reveals that she's not a bug at all. She's Janet, one of Harry's pack females. In her current phase, she's a woman...and a bit more.

She puts her ear to the niffler's chest. As she expects, she doesn't hear a heartbeat...

She hears a noise. In a flash, she leaves the tunnels.

Back in Harry's den, she re-enlarges herself. Jean, one of Harry's other pack females, puts her hand on Janet's head, and feels her memories.

Within those, she tries to feel what the niffler's feeling. She even manages to recall how the niffler got attacked...

When this happens, Jean has a reaction. Around her, the tunnels nearly cave in. Janet gets buried.

Violently, Jean turns back into a wolf. Her fur is red. She howls, in distress.

Harry, still a man, teleports to her, resists the psionic field she puts around herself, and uses his legilimency to remind Jean of how grateful she should be. He chants to her. Gradually, Jean settles down.

All around, the pack females use their powers to clear the debris. They dig Janet from the wreckage.

"I don't believe you attacked that niffler," Jean says, telepathically. "I know you didn't. I don't get as scared of you as I did of..." She flinches, as she almost remembers. Everyone overreacts, as a pebble falls from the ceiling...

Sitting against a wall, as a man, Remus shakes his head. "This looks bad," he admits. "I might not be up to this."

"Remus," Harry explains, "we don't even know what attacked that niffler. It could've been nothing."

Remus shrugs apologetically. "If it is nothing, it's a kind of nothing I'd be new to. I'm older than I was. I can only tolerate evolution for so long."

Outside, the sun sets. A spook settles over the forest.

Far away, through shadows and close-growing trees, a war is brewing. But if potions are at work, they aren't wizardry's potions.

Welcome to Ft. Strucker. An artificially-generated illusion, of more of the darker forest, conceals it from view.

In a saltwater tank, an octopus generates this delusion. He's not only the fort's mascot; he's its guardian.

The ceiling, which is translucently the sky, portrays Hydra's symbol. It puts on a slideshow; each slide delivers pro-Hydra propaganda...like Goebbels.

Here, Hydra's Army of Evil prepares for war. Supply's doing a special, on green-and-yellow battledress...

This is Alyosha Kravinoff/Kraven the Hunter. In his barracks, which is a bit more high-tech than a Mossy Oak Break-Up camouflage tent with a blaze-orange Hydra octopus branded across its sides, he's got some very high-caliber rifles. They're for shooting big game. In his line of work, wolves aren't exactly big game...but they're not varmints, either. Whatever the case, Kraven's always up for a challenge. And these wolves only answer to their own alphas...which will NEVER be good enough for Hydra.

Kraven's also got some compound bows, and ten-gauge shotguns. Alas, he doesn't expect to get to use them, in this war with the Old Aryan werewolves. Then again, werewolves of all types have been known to procreate some VERY formidable specimens...

Hobgoblin doesn't just have a barracks. He's got a fucking hangar. In it, he keeps his Demonic Gliders. These are all branded with the Hydra octopus.

On the rifle range, Hobgoblin practice-throws several Pumpkin Grenades. He cackles like only the Goblin Serum can make him do, as he does so.

Veronica Dultry's/Dragonfly's barracks IS a hangar. But then, she can fly. Nowadays, she wears an armored bra with the Hydra octopus branded across it. And she wears flight goggles that enhance her hypnosis powers.

Like the enemy, Fera/Ferocia is also a werewolf. Not only that, but she was born and raised as a wolf. She's from K'un-Lun, originally. As a wolf, she once killed many males of her species, just to become alpha of their packs. The packs seldom received it well...but there was nothing they could do, once she proved how far she would go to stay in power.

Now, she's had surgery...and has had some of her organs replaced with Skrull ones. Skrulls can shapeshift. And hence, Fera can now change from Ferocia and back freely. She doesn't even need to wait for her mood to change...which, she prefers to think, gives her an advantage over the enemy. Even better, the High Council seems to agree with her, on that...as wimpy as some of them still find the Skrulls to be...

Tomás Ramírez/Fire-Eater, like Dragonfly, is red. Unlike her, he can literally eat and breathe fire. He can also absorb fire. On the rifle range, he spends much time doing this.

He also practices with incendiary disk-shaped grenades. At some hours, he and Hobgoblin have a grenade-throwing contest...

In a stony barracks, Paul Duval/Grey Gargoyle sleeps. He thinks he's finally mastered the art of not turning his bedding into stone...

He's still sleeping off yesterday's patrol. He hated having to petrify that niffler. If he'd blackmailed it properly, it could've shown him to where Ernie McMillan's pack keeps their fortune hidden...

Grey Gargoyle starts to wake. Funny; Hydra usually wakes him, about now...

He suits up, and starts to go out. An alarm buzzes, as he gets to the barracks exit.

In the ceiling and some of the walls, a set of intercoms come to life. They sport the uniform voice of Zola, the High Council's AI.

"_Es tut mir leid_, Messieur Duval," he says. "Our scouts say that the wolves are now suspicious of you. What's even better, they're blaming one of their own for that niffler. For the sake of the operation, we must order you to lay low until further notice."

"That sounds like too long," Duval complains.

Zola hesitates. "I didn't vote against you, if that's any consolation. And neither did Shishido; I have acknowledged how fond you two are of one another. Over and out." With that, the intercoms power down, as Zola disconnects.

Duval sighs, and looks around. His barracks is filled with ordinary objects that he accidentally turned into stone with his power. Some of it is now useless, because of that...


	6. Chapter 6

Across the sky, a strange aircraft flies. It's got a lot of tiltrotors, and great concealment.

Before it, the Castle Schwartz sits. Outside it, many members of the Hydra High Council struggle to stay in shape. Some of the Blacks, Schwartzes, and Swarts struggle to teach Zola, Richter, Vermis, Sinclair, and Shishido how to play Quiddich. One thing's for certain: Tinker Bell had better luck teaching muggles how to fly than these wizards have trying to get a flying charm to last very long, while using them to bewitch High Council members...

The craft lands on the lawn. It's a big lawn. The Schwartzes, Swarts, and Blacks, of course, shade their eyes, while gazing at the magnificent "horseless chariot" that's just landed on the Schwartz estate.

On the side, the "chariot" reads "Silver Sable International." The patron of this aircraft comes from a Slavic land, far away.

The gangplank lowers. A Slavic businesswoman, in a blonde bob, descends the gangplank. Behind her, three others follow. One's a cyborg; more "cyb" than "org," for sure...

Meet Silvija Sablinova. She's certainly a sight for sore (male) eyes. Hydra has recruited her. They think she has a solution to the problem of the werewolves...

Behind her, her bodyguards are cocked...both figuratively and literally. Flint Marko can't seem to stop shedding dust. It practically trickles off him...

Bowman is a bowman. He peels away from the escort, and looks for areas to scout...

Lascombe comes out, and shakes Ms. Sablinova's hand. "Thank you," he tells her, "for returning my Bowman in pristine shape."

Ms. Sablinova scoffs. "I don't know about pristine... But he can still shoot those arrows. More importantly, he makes that inept Hawkeye look like a little boy pretending to be Robin Hood."

Michael Collins is the cyborg. He's got a high-tech eye, that'd make Mad-Eye Moody envious...

Fennhoff and Fisk both come outside to greet her. Fisk kisses her hand.

"Welcome to Britain, Ms. Sablinova," Fennhoff welcomes her, in his most charming Vienna accent. "Your presence is most anticipated."

Christian Black, a lord of the castle, teleports nearby, startling Ms. Sablinova, and causing Collins to inadvertently cock his arm-cannon. Marko accidentally becomes a cloud of dust, and blows away.

Black smiles, and puts up his arms. Collins takes a while...but he does lower the cannon.

Black smiles out at Ms. Sablinova's ride. "Nice chariot," he comments. "How do you make the horses invisible?"

Ms. Sablinova smiles, remembering that there are wizards who live here. "They're not invisible," she says in her sweet Slavic accent. She points at the rotors. "You see those hoops, with sticks hanging inside them, from rods? THOSE are the horses."

"Oh!" Black scratches his head, and studies the chariot. "Muggles never cease to confuse..."

"Not to rush you," Fisk breaks the ice, "but you said you were bringing help. Is it on the craft, or on its way?"

Ms. Sablinova holds up her finger, and smiles. "Never doubt the Silver Sable, Mr. Fisk. I NEVER leave home without the packages I promise to my clients."

She's carrying a purse. She lowers it, and sets it on the ground. She opens it, and pulls out what looks like a puppy.

Alas, it's a robot. It looks, and even movies, like a wolf pup. Its eyes are bright red lights. It makes creepy robotic noises as it yips, and its tail makes eerie noises as it wags...

"Say hello," Sablinova kisses her robotic puppy on the muzzle, twice, "to my Wild Pack. This is Delta. He will be leading the infiltration into your Old Aryan woods. I've uploaded the GPS coordinates of Ft. Strucker into his artificial hive mind."

Fisk seems confused. "He looks like he's just a puppy."

Sablinova sets Delta down, and rotates a device in the puppy's collar. She stands back.

Before Fisk's, Fennhoff's, and Black's eyes, the puppy shifts into an adult, howls super-loud, and runs towards the wall surrounding the castle. Sablinova smiles, takes out another robotic puppy, and does the same thing to it.

After this, she repeatedly takes out more and more robotic puppies, changing them into robotic wolves, and sending them to the wall. From afar, Fisk watches and gapes, as the robotic wolves vault the wall without any apparent difficulties.

"Good god," Fisk mutters. "She's brought us the 101 Dalmatians!"

Fennhoff snickers. Black seems confused...

"There are not quite 101," Sablinova admits. "But whoever these werewolves of yours are, my Wild Pack should be the perfect tool to learning more about them."

"I sure hope so," Black admits. "You sure cost me and my brothers a lot of galleons. And the Hydra Supreme is still complaining about your inflated prices."

She scoffs. "I am Slavic woman. I dream of furs and borzois. Do you really expect me to cut an army of men slack?" She releases another robotic puppy into the wild. "Wizard currency is trigonometry, BTW."

Black scoffs. But of course, HE wouldn't think so... But then, as a wizard, who doesn't know what trig is, he probably thought Sablinova meant "arithmancy." But then, she might as well meant that, considering how seldom Hogwarts offers that subject these years...


	7. Chapter 7

Over the woods, the sun has set. It's time for the night hunt to begin...

Fred Weasley, a local alpha, leads his pack up a hill. At its top, he stops. All around him, his pack females surround him...

Gwen Stacy, a beta female, assumes the front rank. She starts howling the game out of their hides. Around her, the other females follow suit...

Alas, Fred growls, and barks. They all stop, and study him.

Fred paws the ground. Up the hill, some of his females haul a synthesizer. They lay it before his front paws, and start to leave...

Fred growls. They stop. They've left the synthesizer upside down, and facing away from him...

Soon, the synthesizer is right side up. With his front paws, Fred sets the controls, takes a deep breath, exhales, and starts performing "Axel F," the theme music to some "movie" a muggle neighbor of his once showed him, as a boy...

Throughout the forest, his dirge can be heard. It adds new flavor to the Old German woods; certainly one that Bach couldn't have produced, in his time...

Lavender Brown, one of Fred's pack females, looks on, confused. This seems strange, for a night hunting ritual...

Nearby, five white she-wolves, with blue eyes, sit in a row. Their names are Esme, Celeste, Sophie, Irma, and Phoebe Cuckoo. Behind them, their tails wipe, like metronomes, to the music's tempo...

Gwen seems to like the music. She sways to its tempo, as Fred plays it...

Fred stops playing, and perks his ears. So do his females.

All around, the forest doesn't seem to move. No one hears anything. Lavender sighs. She knew this "synthesizer" muggle artifact was just as much a pork barrel as it was a liability, if the Ministry catches them with it, and leaps to conclusions, as they usually do...especially with werewolves...

Alas, there are shadows, beneath the trees. They creep in. Their eyes glow.

All around, the she-wolves raise the hair on their backs, and stand. Some of them growl.

Fred growls louder, imploring them not to attack...yet.

Many of the shadows wander into view. Many wear green-and-yellow battledress. They've got octopus symbols drawn on the fronts of their uniforms.

It's Red Skull, Scorcher, and Living Laser again. And this time, they've brought along Yellowjacket, Vector, Ragnarok, Wizard, and Nitro. They all sport the Hydra octopus.

Now, Fred's females are trembling. Hydra's found them. They know that they've been harassing and inconveniencing Hydra lately. Fred...just didn't expect them to take it this personally...

There must be three squads, of nine each. Fred's not sure if they can take them. But then, he's a wolf; he likes his chances. He howls, and signals the defensive.

Everywhere, wolves start fighting Hydra agents. The ensuing battle is bloody. More than one head will surely get cut off tonight. But only on ONE side will two more take each head's place...

In the aftermath, the Hydra agents are gone. A few of their corpses lie among the dead. More wolf corpses lie. Three of them have been bagged and tagged.

These bags, and tags, are branded with the Hydra octopus. One of them is scarlet red...

Among the dead, the still-wolf corpses of Esme and Sophie Cuckoo lie. Their fur is white, and pure...just like their sisters'... Now it's blood-stained, and in the genesis stage of decomposition. Too bad wolves don't mummify their dead...

But as far as a lot of locals around here are concerned, if there's one wolf in these woods that deserves to be mummified, her last name is NOT Cuckoo...or Frost, even.

Among it all, Lavender Brown's now-human corpse lies. It seems that death has permanently transformed her into a human...

From the shadows, a wolf lumbers into the carnage. He's big, and grey. He stops, over Lavender's corpse, and sniffs it. There's something familiar about it...

Meet Fenrir Greyback. A lot of wolves in these woods owe their lycanthropy to him...whether they want to or not.

In his huge jaws, Greyback seizes Lavender's leg. He hauls her off, through the woods, and vanishes...

Deep in the woods, the den of George Weasley, another pack alpha, lies. A big hole in the ground gapes, where its front door is...

Tonight, George is a redheaded human. One of his females, Angelina Johnson, is still a wolf. He smiles, talks baby talk, and has too much fun petting her. She's just about his favorite pack female...and he tells her that way too many times as he does so.

All around, the other pack females resent his favoritism towards Angelina. Some of them resent it so much, that they're almost ready to transform back into women...

Some already are women. But Ororo Munroe, one of the females, kindly smokes a hookah, and tries to put it out of her mind...

George seems to have a sweet tooth for black females. Then again, the same people probably say that Salazar Slytherin was gay...

And then, it happens. From the front tunnel, Celeste, Irma, and Phoebe emerge. They're distraught, and limping.

Angelina leaps to her paws, raises the hair on her back, and growls. Via telepathy, the Stepford Cuckoos reveal that they've come in peace. They also reveal the bad news, in a vision, to George's whole pack.

It takes a while for George to grasp it. But when he does, he changes into a wolf, races outside, stands outside, and howls vengefully.

George's twin brother has died tonight. If the wolves' quarrel with Hydra wasn't personal before, it sure is now...


	8. Chapter 8

On a hill in the woods, the pack alphas assemble. In the shadows, some of the females stalk around, for security.

Percy Weasley, still in his red wolf shape, chairs the assembly. He sits on a big rock. The other alphas surround him. Harry kindly sets up a legilimency link, so that wolf and man can hear him.

"We've been attacked," Percy begins. "And what's worse, one of our own has died."

They all acknowledge the empty spot among the seats, where Fred would sit. Hiding his face among them, George, still a wolf, sheds a tear.

"The new muggles in town are dangerous," Percy adds. "Which is why I'm going to make a motion in this Thing that I would ordinarily wish never to make."

"We shouldn't do this," Dean Thomas, one of the alphas, implores. "If we do, we become the exact same as that awful werewolf villain who made us."

"I second that," Justin Finch-Fletchley adds. "For all we know, Fred's murder was a mistake."

At this, George growls.

"This isn't the first time they've struck," Ernie reminds them all. "Who's to say they won't again?"

Lee Jordan widens his eyes. "Not me; I can tell you that."

"They WILL do it again," Harry says, sure. "And again! I've seen, up close, what they can do to a pack female. As much as I'd rather hesitate to do so, I second Percy's motion."

"Easy there, Potter. I haven't made it yet."

"I don't care. I do."

Percy hesitates. Silence follows, for a bit.

"Very well. Now, I make my motion. Most of you probably know what it is, but... I move to declare an open season on the new muggles in town."

The alphas buzz. In the brush, some of the eavesdropping females on patrol buzz louder.

"We've done all we can," Percy continues. "We can keep trying to avoid them. But they CLEARLY aren't doing the same for us. We must defend ourselves. And if that means siding with our enemies in Ravenclaw and Slytherin Houses, then so be it." He hesitates. "Then again... It DOES seem strange that none of us have SEEN our enemies lately..."

Everyone looks around, and at each other. They're all mentally acknowledging that Percy's got a point.

Harry dares not speak. His affair with Pansy's a secret, and he intends to keep it that way.

"So," Percy continues, "open season on the new muggles. Are we all in agreement?"

Almost everyone howls. Dean and Justin hesitate... But they howl too.

"Very well. Next time we see someone in the forest, who looks suspicious, or is even branded with that funny octopus mark they sometimes swear: show them no mercy. They will show you none. We've seen it before. It's about time we took a step forward. If we don't try to keep up with them, they'll kill us all for sure."

Everyone howls again. They give away their position to the enemy, but even so, they're not trying to hide anymore. This time, the werewolves are fighting back. Hydra had better beware...unless they've got something to rival a werewolf nation up their sleeves...so to speak.

Harry's very sure they do. But if only his old soul could figure out just what...


	9. Chapter 9

Deep in the forest, there's a tavern. Out here, the werewolves know it as the Three White Stags.

Inside, there's taxidermy on the walls. There's a snow leopard, which was once taken by a McGonagall, in Afghanistan. There's a sambar deer, which was once taken by a Potter, in Bengal. There's a black bear, which was taken by a Black, in New England. It's rather rare for Blacks or Schwarzes to become good wizards...but this one not only was, but was also a werewolf.

There's a red-rumped agouti, taken by a Pettigrew, in the West Indies. There's a wedge-tailed eagle, taken by a Winger, in Northern Territory.

Tonight, the wolves stock the beer halls. Some have reverted back to human, since rebounding from the tragedy of Fred Weasley's obituary.

As for the others, they sit in a small group, on steps, licking their paws. They just can't seem to rebound from trauma as well...but they also don't have many securities about staying in their den when there's beer to be guzzled at the Three White Stags.

Tilda Johnson, one of the pack females, attends to the dogs, while in her human shape. She's an African-Aryan...and a VERY small one, at that...

She holds a beer mug to some of their noses. Most seem to refuse...

Tilda smiles, dumps a shot of whiskey into the beer, and tries serving it to them again. She gets a lot of takers...but not too many.

She smiles, holds up her finger, and drops a bulb of nightshade into the beer. It dissolves instantly, and turns the beer into stout. All at once, all the wolves get up, flock to the beer mug, and start lapping it, as if it was water. Johnson smiles, sets the mug down, and scurries to fetch another for them.

In her absence, one of the wolves changes back into a human, and joins the party. She's Betty Ross...who's just abandoned the shape of a red-coated she-wolf.

In her human shape, Carol Danvers, one of the strongest of the pack females, hosts a drinking contest. Francis Castle, Elektra Natchios, Kate Bishop, Gwen Poole, Toni Ho, Omeed Talaqani ("Dhole"), Wendy Timberlake ("Dingo"), Medusa, Natalie Grey ("Cable"), Emily Guerrero, Mila Morales, Jane Fosli ("Thor"), Jenny Storm, Aikku Jokinen, Erica Drumm, Lucia Cage, Anne Marie, Alexa Grey ("Havok"), Daisy Johnson, Ororo Munroe, Colleen Wing, Sharon Carter, Brunnhilde, Bruna Bekvilatov ("Autumn Soldier"), Helen Cho ("Vision"), Jennifer Walters, Jenny Argyra ("Ares"), Gabrielle Kinney ("Honey Badger"), Kelsey Shorr, Jamie Hammond, Francis Walker, Sharona Grimm, Jamie Rhodes, Bobbi Morse, Monica Rambeau, Jessica Jones, Yelena Belanova, Helen Kyriazis ("Hercules"), Lois Zebulon ("Black Jackal"), and Riri Williams are among many who take on her challenge.

Within a matter of time, most of the pack females are passed out all over the floor. Some have resumed their wolf shapes.

It's just Monica and Carol now. Carol's eyes are just about crossed...

"Ah," Carol sneers, face covered in beer, "it's the KREE that go swimming with big blue something men," she laughs evilly, trying to imitate Dr. Minerva, an enemy she once made.

Monica, an African-Aryan, raises her hand. "I feel a slight sensation," she bluffs. "A slight tingle, in my fingers..."

Carol laughs. "Ah, she can't hold her liquor! My photon-generating, pulsar-empowering, spectrum-racing protégé is the queen of all WWE wrestlers throughout the heavens, and she can't even hold a simple megaliter of..." At this, Carol's eyes cross...and she falls over in her stool.

All around, the pack males leap up, and cheer. Dean Thomas and Lee Jordan climb up onto the table; Jordan whistles through his fingers.

Monica shrugs. "Game over!"

And, they all go back to their regular binge-drinking. Gabrielle wakes, and starts hauling some of the pack females back to their dens...while in her Honey Badger shape.

While drinking, they all chant. A few of them imitate Celtic accents while doing so.

_Ah, here we sit_

_Wolves dressed as wizards_

_Down and out,_

_Guzzling ale, and lager, and stout_

_We're on the brink of war with Muggles_

_We never thought we'd be..._

_Our memory charms have worked on Muggles, alas,_

_We've never been close enough to these_

_To hoodwink them_

_O, what do we do_

_But sit, and await our judgment_

_By the wrath of a team of Muggles_

_Who can't keep their distance?_

_Who can't forget?_

_O, what grudge do they have against us?_

_We've never seen them here before_

_That Muggle Whitehall seems familiar,_

_But it's a long shot_

_Remus, O Remus_

_What the fuck do we do?_

_We seem to be outgunned my Muggles_

_This has never happened before_

_In fact, our enemies at Slytherin and Ravenclaw_

_Once took excessive pride in outgunning them_

_And over-proving it_

_Percival Dumbeldore also did that, back in the day_

_O, how we could use him..._

_But how to do that?_

_No spell can awaken the dead_

_And he was never a headmaster of Hogwarts, unlike his son,_

_So we can't reach for his portrait there_

_Ah, if only we knew where his portrait was now..._

_Alas, men like Percival don't GET portraits;_

_Nor do men like Marvolo Gaunt_

_Hashtag hate_

_Remus, O Remus_

_O what do we do?_

_If only he knew better than us_

_We are just mere wolves_

_With intuition so rare_

_No intuition that has to do with hunting Muggles_

_As much as Muggles hated real wolves, in the Stone Age_

_O, why can't the Stone Age last?_

_O, who the fuck invented the wolfsangel,_

_And why aren't they dead?_

_This is good beer_

_Ah, how we'd all hate to drink our last mug_

_And fall to those Muggles' warcraft_

_Against our doggy wills_

_O, what do we do?_

_How do we retaliate?_

_Where's the Ministry when you need it?_

_O, what a day it is, in the forests of Old Germany_

_When wolves can't protect themselves_

_Any better than the fucking Ministry can_

_O, what do we do?_

_O, what do we do?_

_Ah, what the fucking shite do we do?_

Outside the Three White Stags, the Wild Pack is on the prowl. Robo-wolves scan the area, with green lights in their eyes. With the sensors in their noses, they collect even more intel.

Among them, grains of sand move on their own. Every now and then, Sandman takes the shape of a sandy wolf, and helps the Wild Pack scout the forest...

Back at the Castle Black, Bowman practices his archery. He stands in a tree, and shoots an arrow.

Into the other wall, his arrow's head touches down. It's skewered a trio of plums; some of their juice runs down the arrow shaft.

In a room in the Castle Black, Ms. Sablinova watches her Wild Pack's labor, from a desktop computer. She yawns, as the forest is a big place, that doesn't conceal as much as she hoped it would...

Here and there, some of the Blacks and Schwarzes creep in, and try to do magic on her computer. Alas, Ms. Sablinova has left two of her robo-wolves on patrol. They growl and snap, and chase the dark wizards away, each time.

In a framed portrait up above, Cygnus Black has fallen asleep. He was gawking at Ms. Sablinova's muggle tech; but now that he's seen it's comparability to magic spells, it seems his bigger interests have taken him back to the afterlife...where his body is.

Cho Chang creeps in, in a blue robe, and serves Ms. Sablinova some tea. She thanks her.

Cho pulls her wand out. Ms. Sablinova moves to stop her. Cho smiles, and holds up her hand. She does some magic on Ms. Sablinova's equipment, enhancing its error.

"Thank you, Ms. Cho," Ms. Sablinova thanks her, sipping her tea. "Your intelligence must be the pride of Chinese Old Germany."

"I wouldn't say that. Then again, my housemates just might..."

"Housemates?"

Cho shrugs. "Long story. Just...call if you need me." With that, she scurries off.

Ms. Sablinova scoffs, and sips her tea. "Witches," she mutters. "I never get used to their charm. And to think I once went ten rounds with Clea…"

"You did?"

Ms. Sablinova squeals and stands, spooked. She relaxes, when she sees it's just Fisk.

"Richard!" She smiles, and straightens herself out. "You startled me."

He smiles upon her. "I can see that. Look, if you ever feel like taking a break from that, I was wondering if we could...do something...together...just the two of us. Not to corner you, if that's not what..."

"It's okay." She looks around, and adjusts her clothes. "For anyone else, the answer would be a resounding no. But," she flaps her hair, "you seem to have a different affect on me...for some reason..."

He smiles. "I've had some good teachers. Now," he takes her by the arm, and leads her out of the room, and down the castle halls. "What do you think of German opera?"

Before long, the two of them are sitting among white roses, drinking rosy wine and giggling. If this goes well, this Fisk could very yet bring even more honor to the Fisk family name...as much as it probably doesn't deserve it.

But it's just as well. Neither Richard nor Ms. Sablinova are COMPLETE improvements of their previous generations...Symkarian, Hell's Kitchen, or otherwise.


	10. Chapter 10

At Ft. Strucker, the marksmanship is enhancing. Everyone here is always ready to go to war with Old Germany's werewolves.

Chameleon's got some new gauntlets. From them, he shoots sticky ropes. If he misses, or if he accidentally hits something else, he simply severs the ropes where they come from the gauntlets. Otherwise, he reels what he hits in...as if it were a fish at the end of a pole. Or rather, for him, a fly at the end of an actual chameleon's tongue.

Crossbones is here, too. And he's got gauntlets, too. From them, he fires shurikens. Each time, he hits the target's bullseye.

With his Inhuman power, Hellfire lights up a long chain. Using it as a whip, he slices through several old filing cabinets...as if his chain were a cutting torch.

Punisher's got an M27 infantry automatic rifle. He empties it at the targets, shattering them to bits. He's a man who's full of rage. To him, the M27 will ALWAYS be the perfect tool for expressing it...at least until the USMC upgrades to a new squad automatic weapon...however long THAT takes.

Standing near a bulky dummy, Silver Fox bares her adamantium teeth, and draws her adamantium claws from her fists. With them, she gets to work, unleashing her rage upon the dummy.

When she's done, she spits out its foam. Only litter remains of the dummy. She hauls in another dummy, and does the exact same thing...

Superior Octopus has upgraded one of his four prosthetic tentacles. With it, she sprays ink...as a real octopus would at a predator, in the wild. Its range is very far. He virtually drowns all the targets in his ink.

Not too far from Ft. Strucker, the Castle Slughorn stands. In its gardens, slugs and snails, both magical and muggle, crawl. Above and among them, calla lilies blossom. Each of the castle wall's battlements sport a signal horn.

Here, some of the water features have bottoms that are littered with emeralds and Sickles. Others have mudpuppies living in them. Inside the castle, there's an axolotl who has a tank all to himself. The Slughorns have named him Sousa.

In other aquariums, mostly in the dungeons, there are seahorses. They live among corals. One such tank sports green leafy sea dragons. Some of these seahorses are magical.

Also in the garden, giant tortoises wander around. They munch on whatever beefy greens the Slughorns feed them.

In other aquariums, there are sea stars. They, too, live among corals. One really big tank's got a giant multi-armed one, from the planet Xandar...the capital of the Nova Empire...of which Earth is an ignorant member. Despite this, some of these sea stars are magical, and of wizardry...but don't vote, just as grindylows don't.

When rung, the doorbell sounds more like a tuba. It seldom ever is. As purebloods, the Slughorns don't get very many visitors who don't use Floo powder, or teleport right into the castle without stopping at the front door to ring the tuba-honking bell.

The armchairs and sofas in this house are VERY fat. Most of them are green with silver trim... Although there are a few that're yellow with black trim, and blue with bronze trim...in rooms where they'd match the décor. Mostly, though, the rooms are green with silver/white trim.

One of the dungeons has been converted into the Hall of Slughorns. Down here, there are four glass walls to look into. Each one is a window into an alternate reality...where the perfect eugenically-bred and transwizardly-reared Slughorn has been bred. Only a few of the eight specimens are named Slughorn. The specimens are English, Irish, Galician-São Pauloan, Ukrainian, Greek, Kosovoan, Armenian, and Marathi. Each one owns a pet slug (or an animal that's just as slow), and each one plays a brass instrument.

The Greek Slughorn works at a hydra colony, in Byzantine Greece, and helps breed hydras.

In some of the other dungeons, the Potions are always brewing themselves. It's often said, in Old Aryan wizardry, that whilst Salazar Slytherin invented potioneering, the Slughorns reinvented it.

Outside an upstairs room, a resident stands watch just outside the door. The Blacks, Schwarzs, and Zwarts know him; two of them play Quidditch with him.

Inside the room, Scarlet Witch has been put into a pod. Dr. Faustus is about to do a ritual on her. Fisk, Viper, Silvermane, and Lascombe do what they can to help out. Scarlet Witch would prove a VERY powerful asset to their Army of Evil, if they can claim her.

This shouldn't be too hard. I mean let's face it; she co-founded the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants with her father and twin brother...

With his illusion casting skills, he dupes the mutant lycan into thinking she owes everything to Hydra's cause. In her subconscious, as Faustus chants, Wanda's being rocked gently and maternally, in the coils of a many-headed hydra.

Scarlet Witch will be recruited into the Army of Evil. And when the time comes, she will face enemies on the battlefield...that she once saw as fellow pack females in her ex-pack.

Dr. Faustus isn't sure if she can cure her of her lycanthropy. But if he did, his services would be in VERY high demand, in the Slughorns' world...


	11. Chapter 11

Welcome back to the Castle Parkinson. Something is about to happen here that hasn't happened in a while. (Sorry; it's not an Oktoberfest.)

For this, Pansy lowers the portcullis for one of the dungeons; the ones that all the snakes are in. She triple-bewitches the dungeon, with security enchantments. Tonight, no snakes will be bothering the Thing that's about to happen upstairs.

Within the grey walls that surround this estate, Neville Longbottom, as a wolf, teleports into view. From off his back, Trevor, a toad, hops, and perches next to him.

As usual, Hammer, Tongs, and Anvil growl, and approach Neville. Neville raises the hair on his back, and stands his ground... On the ground, Trevor tries to intimidate them, by expanding. Alas, if only hyenas understood toad signals...

It takes her a while, but Pansy, the lady of the castle, teleports into view, and dismisses the hyenas.

She's a bit disappointed, that Neville has come as a wolf. Even so, she gathers him up in her arms, and carries him across the castle grounds. She's barefooted, as usual. Trevor hops along, leaps, shrivels to the size of a tadpole, and stows away in her robes; a trick that Severus Snape once taught him, while trying to torture both him and his master.

Too bad Trevor's not a human. If he was, he'd SO love to gawk up Pansy's upskirt, about now...

Pansy teleports into a great hall inside the castle. Here, she sets Neville down. Trevor hops out of her robes, re-sizes himself to size, and re-mounts Neville.

Far across the hall, there's a round table. Tonight, a being thing will happen, to address the matter of the villainous powered Muggles in Old Germany.

What's a being thing, you ask? It's when all of the races of beings in a certain region of the wizarding world send someone, to represent them, to a meeting to address an issue that impacts all of the above. Around the table itself, in this hall, there are eight chairs.

There's one more, in a corner, that's too big for any wizard Neville knows. That's because someone very big is being expected.

Normally, this hall isn't this big. But again, someone very big is coming. (And just to be clear, she HATES being called fat...although she will tolerate a limited amount of it.)

Neville, still a wolf, takes up his seat at the head of the table. The werewolves are the ones who motioned for this thing. It feels big, with just him at it.

Pansy sits near him, and waits. After a while, Neville stares at her, and generates a confused whimper.

"My husband's out Muggle-hunting tonight." She smiles, and flaps her dark bobbed hair. "I've FINALLY egged him to take on the challenge...and become the nobleman he must be for Old Aryan wizardry. Either that, or some of our Slytherin neighbors did..."

Neville whimpers mournfully.

"Such a shame you won't be able to speak up, at today's thing. You're the one who called it, after all."

Neville growls.

Marius, the vamp rep, super-runs into the hall, and takes his seat. Neither Neville nor Pansy see him come in.

"Good evening, Baron Marius," Pansy smiles, flaps her bob, and imitates Dracula. "Can my house-elves get you a bloody Mary."

"They'd better make it quick," the Baron admits, struggling to conceal his fangs. "I'd hate for Linkey to have to watch her own kin serve me, a non-house-elf."

In a flash, the bloody Mary appears. The Baron raises his brows, and drinks it politely.

"Shocked he wasn't here first," Pansy grumbles. "He's fast."

Neville growls again.

Almost true to the Baron's dreading, Linkey, a very short yet athletic girl with cropped hair and in a chrome metal bikini, teleports into her rightful place on the thing. A house-elf, she's normally the Notts' maid. Her masters are hospitable enough to let her come to these things...if not hospitable in general.

Pansy knows the Notts. She's even fucked some of the dark wizards they've produced. She doesn't remember as well as she once did. But she's sure that they were all VERY good. Hell, she can't say she's ever fucked a dark wizard she's hated...or even a benevolent one, at that.

Outside, a hag rides up to the façade, through the gate, aback a boar. His name is Braun. His brunet hair is greasy. There are maggots in his ears. He's got a few skin tags that his brown robes can't seem to keep concealed...as well as colonies of them that they can. He's barely decent, beneath those robes.

He leaves the boar outside, and enters. A house-elf shows him in.

Pansy goes hogwild, no pun intended, when Braun comes in. She gladly invites him to fill the chair next to her...which he does. He can't seem to stop scratching, as he makes his way to the chair. He sits, and belches when he does.

The Baron seems disgusted. Linkey giggles.

"O good," Braun thanks. "Fifth here. For once, I'm not last."

"Thanks for those child-roasting tips from last time, Herr Braun." Pansy smiles, and puts her hand on Braun's robed arm. "You really know how to bring out the porkiness and vealiness of long pork-veal. Harry Potter really liked the one I made for him."

Neville growls, sighs, and shakes his head, all at the same time.

"I keep telling you," Braun tells her, "it's just like roasting a piglet. All you've got to do is stop treating it like a child, while you're preparing it for roasting."

They wait. Soon, the castle shakes. Linkey falls out of her chair; Neville almost does.

There's a very big arch in one of the walls. A woman, who's about seven meters tall, arrives. She's got long red flowing hair. She slithers through the archway, as if it was big enough for her. It is, but she looks like she's used to bending over before going through most doors.

Neville whimpers, a bit timid. Trevor tries to hide in Neville's crotch...until he sees that Neville's urinating. So he hides behind Neville's rump, instead.

Linkey gapes. She's smaller than most here; it makes sense why she would.

The Baron tries not to stare...although he's more than tempted to.

The floor thunders, as Red Tethys sits in the armchair designated for her. She seems happy, with how comfy it is.

Near the chair, a sized-to-fit end table is conjured. A mug of beer, also sized-to-fit, appears atop it. Near it, a sized-to-fit shot of whiskey is, too. Red Tethys smiles, drops the shot into the mug, and happily drinks the boilermaker. The shot glass makes a loud clanking noise, as it hits the bottom of the glass.

"Six down," Braun whispers, "two to go."

Pansy giggles. "You've always been better at transfiguration than me. And to think you never went to Hogwarts."

Braun turns his greasy head, and studies her...

"Your eyes are so gorgeous." She smiles, and fixes his greasy hair. "I don't know why they call you hideous."

Through a vent in the vaults, a golden glider glides. Aboard, an armored goblin stands. She flies around for a bit, and shows off.

Pansy looks up, and shakes her head. "She'd better not have armament on that thing."

She flies in circles around the silver emerald-jeweled chandelier. She's almost like a swallow flying around it...if swallows were scarier.

She comes down. The glider hovers about a meter off the floor. She jumps off. The armor vanishes, revealing a short yet very athletic girl with cropped blonde hair. Behind her, the glider flies away.

Her name is Lyra. She wears a lot of gold jewelry. She climbs into her seat, near Neville. Courteously, she shakes Neville's paw. She makes a gross face, when she sees Trevor.

"For the record," she sneers, trying to explain her almost-tardiness, "gliders are an experimental invention, in goblin world."

"Inspired by the Hobgoblins in Muggle New York, no doubt," Pansy imagines.

"And the Green Goblins." Lyra checks her gold watch. "Those Spider-Men really like to demand competition over there...from what we Old Aryan goblins have heard. Ah, Muggle vigilantes. They really like to...to..."

Lyra, Pansy, Linkey, and Red Tethys all turn their heads, as the thing's last member enters the room. The men would rather look away...but mustn't do so entirely, for diplomacy's sake.

Verner, a veela, enters the room, in a streaming satin robe. He turns slowly, towards Tethys's bare leg, and pretends to shoot her a bullet, at her head.

Flirtatiously, Tethys catches the imaginary bullet, kisses it, and holds it between her breasts, in her low-cut.

Distracted, Verner runs into a column. He straightens himself, gives the giantess an apologetic glance, and takes up his seat at the table.

He sits next to Linkey. Linkey seems nervous...as if she's unfit to sit near a man of such dashing charm.

"Alright," Pansy smiles, flapping her hair. "The meeting has been summoned."

A wine glass of vermouth appears, before Verner. Politely, he drinks it.

"As you might have all noticed," Pansy continues, "I'm not my husband. Tonight, he's," she looks around, "hunting. He won't be back until late.

Subtly, Neville shakes his head at the goblin. Lyra scoffs, smiles, and nods.

"Is there something you'd like to share with this thing," Pansy asks, a bit more critically than before, "Lyra?"

"Nothing." Lyra shrugs, and plays innocent. "I was just thinking that as many white stags that've been seen out there in those woods lately, it would be a miracle if your husband ever came back at all."

"Shockingly, he's not that kind of man. I've always wanted for him to be, but... Some men just stop evolving, once their testicles ripen...if any of their testicles truly do ripen."

Linkey frowns, and shakes her head.

"Need I not remind you, Lady Parkinson-Goldstein," Verner says, with a refined and polite voice, "that this is a diplomatic summit?"

"You need not," Pansy smiles, and flaps her bob, "Herr Verner. How's Vienna, BTW?"

"I'm rather more interested in why this summit has been motioned. These powered Muggles you speak of; I think some of my fellow veelas have had some unsavory encounters with them. In fact, there are even reports of rape within my race. And the victors are reportedly Muggles. When I heard the first reports, I didn't believe it. Muggles are usually more likely to fall victims to my kin's charms, not vice versa."

"A lot of my kin have been attacked, too," Lyra confesses. "Not a lot of us are female, but those of us who are wear a lot of our own native jewelry. Much of it is worth way too many Galleons these days...or ever."

"My kin have been attacked to," Linkey speaks up; she usually doesn't talk at all; a habit from her work, no doubt. "They don't get reported very often, but now that you've all shared your stories, I wouldn't be shocked if we lost five of our own to these powered Muggles a day."

"Some of our men are being hunted," Tethys's voice thunders across the hall. "Usually, our men can stand their own against Muggles who stumble upon our colonies by chance, but nowadays, so fewer men are returning from hunts."

"Few of us have died," Braun reports. "Most of my kin are female. Those who have died were probably just killed to cover up something. Although that's not to say that any of our women are desirable. We're just solitary. The whole 'hideous' propaganda you usually hear about us is just a myth. It's mostly our HABITS that gross Muggles out..."

"We can usually stay hidden well enough," the Baron cuts him off. He doesn't usually talk, either. "We've even stayed ahead of some of these powered Muggles. I also confess that some of the worst of us have dared drink their blood. Even so, we've grown to take pride in that. Some of them are capable of attacking and hurting vampires...and I don't mean with garlic or sunlight."

"Rumor has it," Pansy adds, "that their new HQ is at the Castle Schwarz."

"WHAT," the other talking ones exclaim. Neville and Trevor both study Pansy, with narrowed eyes...as narrow as Trevor's can be, considering how un-flexible, and not to mention un-opaque, his eyelids are.

"I don't know this for a fact," Pansy tells them. "Me and the Blacks don't talk as much as I'd like. But I meet some of their neighbors whenever I go to town; a few of them hunt Muggles with them. I've also sent a black Kneazel to trespass the Castle Schwarz. He didn't make it out, but I did to Legilimency on him, while he was out.

"There are a lot of people living there who I don't know. I'm not even sure that these people have wands."

"That's it," Tethys shouts. "I motion for an attack on the Castle Schwarz!"

Neville howls. Trevor inflates his throat sac as much as it can be inflated...and croaks as loud as he can, at the same time.

"We're not here for that," Verner motions. "Or at least, not if Pansy doesn't motion for it. Ms. Parkinson-Goldstein...do you believe that we should suspect the Black family, or do you not?"

A house-elf teleports into their midst. Linkey looks down, avoiding her enslaved kin's gaze.

"Master," the house-elf addresses Pansy, "I'd hate to interrupt, but you've got a Floo call."

Pansy sighs, stands, and takes her leave. "I'll be back," she promises. "Don't vote on anything without me." With that, she teleports to her Floo grate.

"The Blacks have a reputation for things like this," Tethys reminds them all, in Pansy's absence. "I say we attack them."

At this, Neville wags his tail, and barks.

"As much as I love tormenting wizards," Lyra admits, "the Castle Schwarz is too precious, to both me and my kin. I'd hate to destroy it, if there's no need."

"These people sound unsavory," Linkey voices. "They must be stopped."

"As much as I support the average democracy's constitutional freedom to assembly," Verner admits, "we could use some more intel on who's staying with the Blacks. Question is, how to gather it without spooking them, if they truly are hiding something?"

"A few of my kin have killed some Muggles for them," the Baron volunteers. "Maybe I could get them to help?"

Braun's not sure what to add to this. He's never trespassed a castle's grounds and gotten away with it. If he was trespassing the castle of a rich Hufflepuff wizard, that would be one thing; at least he'd have a chance of surviving, if he got caught. But the Blacks are no Hufflepuffs; not the majority of them, anyway. They've been known to kill trespassers. And killing is a mercy, in contrast to what some of the more passionate Slytherins have done to trespassers...

Like a shadow, Pansy appears in a doorway. She's not too quick to resume her spot at the table. All around, the thing falls silent. Trevor doesn't dare croak.

She looks up, and addresses everybody. "He's dead," she says.

Still, they study her.

"Caleb was hunting Muggles, as I dared him to," she continues. "I kept daring him to hunt the powered ones, too. He was insecure, but somehow, I cajoled him into it. And now, tonight, he went out to hunt them, with a lot of our Ravenclaw and Slytherin neighbors."

Still, they all study her.

"Only one of them survived to come back and tell us." She shakes her head. "He wasn't my husband."

At this, Neville transforms back into a human, startling some of the thing attendees. Trevor hops up onto his arm, and perches on his shoulder.

Silence fills the room. Pansy takes a bronze sapphire-jeweled ring off her left ring finger, and sets it on the table. She clasps her hands, and bows to it.

In a painting on a wall, a friar gets on his knees, clasps his hands together, and recites a Hail Morgana.

Verner helps out, by duping everyone in the room into sharing his own depression. He's a veela; he's inadvertently seduced a lot of Muggle women that way...whether he's proud of having done so is a different matter.

Into a hole in the wall, a python slithers. He stays there.

Atop a bronze staff somewhere on the castle grounds, a bronze sculpture of a raptor perches, with its wings expanded. Somehow, the eagle falls right off the statue, and lands on its back, far from the staff's base.

Nearby, a Niffler erupts from the soil, looks around, and sees the eagle. Greedy, he snatches the sculpture, and drags it back down into the ground with him, to add to his secret hoard.

If Caleb had his way, that Niffler would've been exterminated years ago. But Pansy insisted he was cute, so he stayed. Alas, if Pansy saw the size of that Niffler's hoard, or where it was being kept, she probably would've sided with her now-late husband on how to approach the Niffler.

It's not too late for that. Even so, as a Slytherin with intimate neighbors, Pansy's going to feel like she has to grieve for Caleb...whether she actually wants to is less clear. Alas, one can only think how many more of Pansy's silvery or emerald possessions that Niffler could possibly nick in the amount of time she takes to grieve Caleb...or how much more the Niffler likely will, in the very likely instance in which Pansy forgets about the issue once again. She does have a Slytherin's memory, after all...


	12. Chapter 12

On the coasts of Old Germany, Caleb Goldstein's funeral is hosted. Many turn up. It's a mass ceremony. A mass funeral is held, for all the Ravenclaw and Slytherin pureblood supremacists who dared hunt the powered Muggles in the woods, on that infamous night that all but one of their own survived an epic massacre; one that no Muggle, powered or otherwise, had ever wrought upon them before.

In the funeral crowd, there's a whole section of it of women...who're there, weeping for Caleb. They feel so bad. He could've married any one of them, instead of Pansy. They all wish he had...

Pansy attends to...although not for long. She keeps flipping the bird at the crowd of would-be Goldstein widows...without even looking at them.

The corpses are laid in separate longboats, atop much wood. The wood stinks of oil. Next, more oil is dumped on their corpses. They're all pushed out into the water, where they drift farter and farther away from shore.

Shaking, Zacharias Smith, one of the pack alphas of the werewolves, dips an arrowhead in a barrel of oil. He lights it, shakes more, and prepares to shoot Caleb's body, as it drifts out to sea.

"Uh, Zach," Kate Bishop creeps up behind him, and implores him, "maybe I should do this? Clint Barton trained me how to shoot arrows..."

"I can do this," Zach insists. He aims, and shoots. The arrow skids across the ground, and goes out without even touching the water.

Zach lights another, and tries again. Still, Kate implores.

"Seriously, I should do this. I can..."

"So can I," Zach insists.

"Zach, if you don't shoot his body, his soul won't go to Valhalla..."

"I'm aware of the consequence, thank you!" With that, he shoots again. It lands in the water...far from the boat's stern.

Zach lights another arrow, and prepares to try again. Still, Kate implores.

"Barton once taught me how to do this at a New Asgardian funeral," she insists. "Can you seriously say you've done as much?"

"I won't get good if I don't practice, right?" He shoots again. Still, the arrow doesn't land close enough. All around Caleb's boat, all the other boats are aflame.

"Zach," Kate says through her teeth, "I say again, LET, ME, FUCKING, DO THIS!"

"NO," Zach says, one final time, shooting one final flaming arrow. It misses, too.

Pansy moans, and calls for her house-elf. "Go out to sea," she orders, "and fetch my husband's body, before it gets tangled up in a North Atlantic hurricane."

The house-elf nods, snaps, and vanishes.

"This," Padma Patil whispers, "isn't really the time of year for hurricanes in the North Atlantic, just so you know..."

"Shut up," Pansy almost exclaims.

The house-elf returns, seconds later, with Caleb's boat. This time, it's set adrift...and Kate shoots it with a flaming arrow, like a champ. All behold, as his body burns brightly at sea...far behind the bodies of all his passed hunting mates.

Ernie and Justin drag Zach away. He thrashes, and demands to be offered yet another chance, at shooting Caleb's body and sending his soul to Valhalla...if that even happens.

Now, Pansy is a noble widow. She's free to move on to whichever man she pleases...

Alas, now would not be a good time to do so. There are still powered Muggles at large, and wizardry expects her to be a powerful force behind ending them. She has no idea how she's going to do that, without a great man to stand behind...noble, pureblood, or otherwise. But wit the wills of Merlin and Salazar Slytherin, she's going to do it...and she's going to find out what kind of sex these powered Muggle men prefer, if she ever gets to meet up with any of them...


	13. Chapter 13

Deep in the woods, Ft. Strucker's undergoing a transformation. One by one, each of Hydra's warriors are inoculated. They're put in pods. The pods are sealed, and stacked in barracks.

From an elevated walkway above it all, Rüdiger watches. He doesn't smile, but he smiles on the inside. Part of him hates to do this. But as the Hydra Supreme, he needs more control over his Army of Evil.

Whitehall stands near, and watches with him. He's never missed needing a monocle, ever since gaining Inhuman immortality and healing.

"This feels excessive," Whitehall admits. "A lot of them already have powers."

"They will retain their powers," Rüdiger assures him. "Alas, they will soon come out blonder, younger, and more healthy than their...primitive counterparts. They will be an army worthy of the white race. They'll be easier on the eyes than what a Swedish ale can put there."

"I don't doubt. But what if this re-forged army isn't enough? What if something goes wrong, and they're less controllable than we wish?"

"I've planned backup." He smiles. "They're working out downstairs, as we speak."

"Who?"

"They're the new STRIKE team. They're a bit rusty, but... I do not doubt their loyalty to our cause."

Downstairs, the new STRIKE team, better known as the Masters of Evil, practice their marksmanship. They're always getting better...and worse, at the same time.

Michael Badilino/Vengeance releases the Spirit of Vengeance...transforming his head into a flaming skull. He wears a necklace, made of bony rings, around his neck. He rips this off. Somehow, it elongates itself, and imbues itself with the power of hellfire.

He swings this whip around, practicing his marksmanship. But then, he's Mephisto's servant; he doesn't really have to.

Theia Lansky/Lightmaster shoots rays of light from herself, at targets. She roasts these targets to nothing, causing them to spontaneously combust, with pure light.

She also forges swords out of pure light, and uses them to dice up dummies. The dummies smoke, after she dices them.

John Horton/Griffin is beastly. He can roar like a lion and fly like an eagle...and has the mane and teeth of the former and the wings and talons of the latter.

His tail is long, snake-like, and has spines all over it. For marksmanship, he uses this as a spiked whip. With it, he slashes targets, shattering and leaving holes in them. He roars, as he slashes.

Amora/Enchantress wears something green and low-cut, and generates green-glowing balls of energy from her hands. Like grenades, she throws them. They land right on their targets, no matter how she throws them, and destroys them. In the aftermath, her targets smell like limes, for some reason...

Via telepathy, Jules Hammer commands the Crimson Cowl. It twists itself up into a rope, coils back, and slashes a target, shattering it.

Nathalie Garrett/Black Knight wields the Ebony Blade. It's a shiny black metal blade, forged from Starstone. With this, and while black body armor-clad, she slashes targets to bits. Sadly, she's used this sword more often than the Whitmans or the Scandians have. It poisons her soul, each time she uses it.

Wizardry's got something like that; it's called dark magic. Alas, some spells, potions, and herbs do more damage than others. And with a sword, especially a magic one like the Ebony Blade, there's no such thing as "a little damage."

They're all a match for Harry Potter. And they're all prepared to kill him, if they have to.

Daimon Hellstrom has also been recruited. For the first few days of his newfound recruitment, he participates in maneuvers. He lights up the pentagram-shaped birthmark on his chest. He wields his netheranium bident. He shoots hellfire lasers from it, and incenerates targets in ways that make the other Masters look lame.

Alas, as he surveys this all...he knows he can't continue. And technically, Hydra doesn't have the power to stop him from leaving, or to avenge themselves if he does leave. So, with a simple teleportation spell, he leaves the Masters be. There are more worthy battles to fight, after all, than a silly war with a pack of werewolves.

In his absence, the Masters train on. It's up to them to defend the High Council and the cause, while the Army of Evil is getting a cryo-makeover...


	14. Chapter 14

Grey clouds dwell over the Castle Parkinson. They rain.

The silver-backed hyenas, that usually guard this estate, sit sadly in their kneazelhouses, in the corner of the fort. Behind them, a spiral passage leads up to one of the battlements atop the wall. One wouldn't expect hyenas to be afraid of water. OTOH, they are kin to cats.

In the gardens, the white flowers drip. The piles of dead gnomes, here and there throughout the garden, are eroded away by the rain.

In the water features, the green and silver cichlids are barely visible, beyond the raindrop-tarnished water surface. They all tread water near the depths, where the water's current challenges their swim bladders the least.

Throughout the grounds, the snake statues shed tears, of rainwater. A lot of them shed those tears for Caleb, even if his widow doesn't.

In the shadows, they don't seem sad at all. In fact, they seem to be abetting Hydra...

Outside Pansy's bathroom door, flower petals are scattered. Throughout the room, jars and clay bowls with water and lotus blossoms hover in place. Some of them move here and there, like blimps. The ceiling is bewitched to look like the raining and cloudy sky.

Harry lies on the bed, on his back, in nothing but a pair of golden boxers. He's a human now. His lightning-shaped scar lies over where his eyes would be. Elsewhere over his body, some of his werewolf scars never heal fast enough...

Across the floor below the footboard, a death adder slithers. With every crawl, he gets closer to the bed...

Pansy comes out of the bathroom, dressed in black satins. She sheds them, revealing sheer black lingerie. Her hair is black and bobbed, as usual. She's bathed in love potions, just for her precious rebound werewolf.

Harry feels something on his legs. He lifts his head...and gapes.

It's the death adder. It's crawling right towards his face, flicking its tongue as it goes along...

Furious, Pansy casts a levitation spell, relieves Harry of the frightening sight atop him, and banishes the snake back to the dungeon. She scoffs, circles the bed, and begins the ritual that the death adder so rudely postponed.

Starting from the foot of the bed, she slithers towards him...almost like that death adder just did. She mounts his midriff, and sits high over him. Before, Harry could sense her, with his werewolf senses. Now he smiles even wider, as he can feel her on him.

"Welcome to the Chamber of Secrets, half-blood," she mock-sneers. She conjures her wand into her hand. "Prepare to perish, before the basilisk's glowing yellow eyes..."

High in the vaults, a white rose hovers. It sheds one of its petals.

Below, Pansy fucks Harry long, nice, and slow. Depending on how things go from here, this might be the last time she gets to do so...

From a buttress, a boomslang hangs, from its coils. One of the Crouches', no doubt... Clearly, he doesn't want his skin to become a part of a cauldron of Polyjuice Potion. Even so, he observes Pansy and Harry as they copulate...as rude as this would be, if he were a human.

Soon, she lies next to Harry, with her arms around him. The wolf hair on his back is so manly, and warm. She confesses that she never truly had sex fantasies of Harry Potter, until she got the owl announcing his new status as a werewolf. Next thing she knows, she's masturbating in this bed every day, as her husband works his ass off between homes in the wizarding and muggle worlds alike...

"I don't know if I can do this, Harry," she says. "I know I should need a rebound chap, but..." She caresses his big arm. "We used to be enemies at Hogwarts. Even worse, everyone we know knows that."

"Not sure if I understand. For as long as it lasted, I couldn't actually tell if you loved your husband."

"I'm not surprised that a lot of wizards think I didn't. But you know, he was a Ravenclaw. Also, his family was Jewish. The Goldsteins are hardly one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight...as fashionable as a lot of them are. Half-bloods and mudbloods get into Hogwarts all the time. There's even a rumor going around that Granger almost made it into Ravenclaw, herself."

"I'm aware."

"This just...doesn't feel like a good time in my life for men."

"I understand. You want the Sacred Twenty-Eight to think that you loved Caleb. And I believe that deep down inside, you want my pack to think that, too. Hence, I can only take bigger and bigger risks coming out here to see you in the immediate aftermath of Caleb's passing."

Pansy kisses the wolf hair on his back. "Thank you SO much for understanding, Harry. I'll owe you one, if we ever get back together."

The boomslang shakes his head, and crawls away, via the top of the buttress he's on...

Outside the front door, Cho Schwarz, nee Chang, teleports into view. She sighs, as she looks around. As much as she adores some pureblood wizarding families, it just as often disgusts her how they often never change...not even for their sometimes-Ravenclaw spouses... Even so, she enchants the door knocker to knock itself.

From the plants around the front porch, a cottonmouth emerges. He stays on the edge of the porch, flicks his tongue, and watches the transaction that follows...

Through the door glass, she sees Pansy teleport into view, and look through the porthole. The porthole's enchanted to make the guest look like how Pansy usually sees them. In this case, Cho looks like a Cornish pixie, struggling to hover by over-beating its wings, and continually revolving here and there, looking everywhere, as if expecting danger.

The door vanishes. Pansy nods her head upward, signaling her attention's presence.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Pansy," Cho says, "but my husband and some of his...neighbors, are doing an experiment. They need Kneazel extract. Do you have any?"

She scoffs. "Not much, but I'll bring you what I have. Don't go away." With that, Pansy promptly banishes the cottonmouth back to the dungeon, and teleports away, leaving the door vanished. Cho screams, as the cottonmouth flies past her.

Cho sighs, walks over to a chrome metal bench, and sits. The bench's arm rests resemble coiled snakes.

Just above, this part of the estate is guarded by gargoyles. Some of them resemble kneazels.

Harry Potter teleports into view, sitting next to Cho. Cho screams, when she sees him.

"Oh, hi Harry." She flaps her long straight black hair. "Thought you were someone else."

"Your husband, perhaps?"

"I didn't say that."

"But you meant it. I can read your mind..."

"PLEASE," she holds up her hand, "don't do that any more than you already have. I'm sorry, but I absolutely CANNOT tell you about what's going on at the Castle Schwarz."

"If you're in trouble, maybe my pack can help."

"No! No, we are NOT in trouble! Please...just stay out of this. I'm married, and that's that. My husband and I have marital problems. I swear that's as bad as it gets!"

Harry nods, and smiles. "Fine. I'll take your word for it...for now." With that, he teleports away.

Pansy comes back outside, with a vial. She's wearing black satin, with blacker lingerie beneath. "This is all I have," she tells Cho. "I trust you know how to cast an enlargement charm."

Cho nods, taking the vial. "Better than anyone," she assures her. "Thank you, Pansy. And I'm sorry about your husband's death." She studies her. "Speaking of which, why are you dressed like that? I know that you should be in mourning, but... Mourning robes are usually a lot less...translucent."

She shrugs. "I like rainy weather. I'm a Slytherin. I can't help myself."

"Well then, what are you doing inside?"

"No, no, you miss the point. Hard to believe you could, but... I like the feel of the rain against my comfy house, while I can adjust the climate in my home to my liking."

Cho shrugs. "Some wizards these days just...cast a spell to where they can't hear the rain. Or better yet, they sew up an illusion that makes a more pleasant noise, so that they can't hear the rain."

Pansy scoffs. "A sound more pleasant than the rain?! I know you live in the Castle Schwarz, Chang, but you could REALLY use some new neighbors!"

She sighs, studying the vial of kneazel extract Pansy's just fetched her. "Trust me...I know. Anyway, that's all I needed. Sorry to bother your..." She looks Pansy up and down, "something..." With that, Cho teleports away, with the extract.

Pansy snickers, and returns into the castle. Behind her, the door re-conjures itself.

By the time Harry teleports to the other side of the wall, he's a wolf again. When he told Cho that he hadn't read enough of her thoughts, he lied. Now he KNOWS that there's trouble at the Castle Schwarz. With that, he howls, and runs off, into the forest.

In his absence, a bushmaster crawls out from a hole beneath the castle wall. He flicks his tongue, while watching the wolf leave in a high lope...or, in his case, a high _lupe_.

Back in the Castle Parkinson, Pansy stops, when she hears Harry's howl. She heaves a sigh. "Men," she mutters. "Why can't I get them to stay tangled in my nets?"

As fast as he can, Harry runs through the woods. Higher above the trees, the clouds look like they're getting darker...

Harry runs. He can feel his den getting closer...

Alas, he's soon broadsided by something robotic and fierce. Harry skids across the ground, hits a tree, stands, and faces what's trespassed him.

It's three robotic wolves, from the Wild Pack. Before, they were just scouting. Now they've been armed.

Harry raises the fur on his back, and bares his fangs. The Wild Pack wolves have red light bulbs for eyes; and now, all three pairs of eyes glow with the readiness of a fierce Symkaria-style dogfight...


	15. Chapter 15

The Wild Pack has got Harry cornered. It's time for war.

Harry can't use Legilimency. His foes' minds are robotic, and process data both louder and faster than Harry can interpret. And they're not snakes, so Harry can't talk his way out of this.

Harry barks, summoning his broomstick. The Wild Pack misinterprets this, and charges.

Harry leaps, and evades. Another leaps at him. He steps atop its head, and flies. From the side, another leaps. Harry turns sideways, and kicks him in the side of the face.

Harry races towards a hill, making a bid for the high ground. Other robotic wolves in the Wild Pack arrive, and cut him off.

It's time for Harry to get offensive. He knows he shouldn't do this, but...

He barks, casting a fiendfyre curse. The fire grows, becomes a lion, stands with hits "fur" up on its back, and roars.

Sensing an outmatched foe, the robotic wolves turn and run. The fiendfyre chases them. Right on time, Harry's broomstick arrives. He mounts it, and flies away, just as his own fiendfyre almost consumes him.

Like a wildfire, the fiendfyre assumes the shapes of many monstrous beasts, and chases the Wild Pack through the woods. Harry follows them, on his broom. He just knows they're going to the Castle Schwarz...

Harry senses ahead, stops his broom in the air on a Knut, and whimpers. Ahead, some of the Wild Pack wolves do too...whether they're right to do so or not.

Up ahead, a great tidal wave of earth moves, at a great speed, towards the wolves and fire, tilling up the forest as it goes along. Entire trees are uprooted, and buried with the great racing mound...

Harry senses, as the wave destroys the Wild Pack, and douses his fiendfyre. Harry's soul is still aching from having cast that curse...but he's more or less grateful to whoever just helped him for countering his own curse for him.

He won't be for long. Great tentacles, made of soil, suddenly leap from the ground, and reach towards Harry, on his broomstick. Harry whimpers, and flies away.

All over the ground, other tentacles of soil leap, grasping for the same flying wolf. Harry's starting to sense that this Sandman isn't here to help him...

On a hill, Deathlok stands, and aims his arm cannon. He fires a Quidditch Bludger. It broadsides Harry, and knocks him off his broom.

Harry rolls over on his paws, with the hair on his back raised. The rolling mound of soil slows, gets smaller, and shapeshifts into William Baker. He's just as macho as ever, and just as ready for combat as Deathlok is.

From a tree, Bowman fires a cable, with an arrow. He hangs from it, and slides to the ground.

The rest of the Wild Pack forms a triangle around Harry. One might say that they've, "triangulated his position..."

Bowman wastes no time. He shoots a bunch of arrows everywhere. Harry growls, leaps, and grabs Bowman by the neck.

Deathlok arrives, and kicks Harry in the side. Harry rolls across the ground. Sandman comes up near him, surrounds him, and drags him down into the soil...

From above, Harry's broomstick tries to reunite itself with him. Deathlok narrows his one good eye, aims his arm cannon, and reduces the broomstick to splinters, without even looking at it.

Harry kicks, struggles, and gets free of the Sandman. He leaps, grabs Deathlok by the neck, and pins him. He then starts mauling Deathlok, as revenge for having destroyed his broomstick.

With an eyepatch over his recessive eye, Bowman watches Harry molest Deathlok. Harry's in a berserker rage; Bowman can tell.

Bowman's been saving a VERY special arrow for this. It's something that the Blacks made for him; accursed, rather. Bowman grins, pulls out this arrow, and aims it. He stands very still, grins on the exhale, and releases it.

It hits Harry in the back leg. He whimpers and flips over several times, as it goes into his flesh.

Harry then staggers, and slows. There's something VERY wrong with that arrow. It's not quite Horcrux magic, but... It's VERY similar...and almost just as lethal...

From the ground, Deathlok regathers himself. He reprograms the software on his own prosthetics.

Injured, Harry's gaze falls on Bowman. He shot him. Harry snarls, bares his fangs, and charges. Alas, he trips right over the trip wire Bowman's put into place, and gets caught in a net. The net rises with an abroad tree branch, and hangs Harry upside-down, with his tail up.

With a great soil-made hand, Sandman takes Harry by the net, and drags him uphill, while made of soil. He rests Harry on an anvil-shaped rock. He turns his fist into a giant blacksmith's hammer, and starts treating Harry as if he were a sword.

Deathlok and Bowman arrive, and help out, torturing Harry. Bowman deserves a break; he might or might not realize it, but he's condemned Harry to death. Even so, he's a Hydra protégé; he never quits just because he's already won. And clearly, neither does the Wild Pack, or its actual alpha, Silver Sable...

Harry gets help from an unexpected-yet-expected source. His fiendfyre has just about cooled by now. Its ashes are buried, but even so, its ashwinder soon tunnels from the soil, like a worm. This magic snake flicks its tongue and slithers around, looking for his first meal.

The snake creeps up behind Deathlok, takes his whole body in his mouth, and eats him in one bite. Nearby, Sandman and Bowman see this, and flee. The ashwinder hisses, leaps over Harry, and slithers off after them.

In the burned soil, the ashwinder's eggs still remain. With luck, Harry will remember to come back for them, if he survives the Bowman's accursed arrow...

Three pack females meet him at the border of his pack's territory. He's limping. They ask him what happened.

"Hydra," he tells them, via legilimency, "ambush." With that, he falls over.

He also needs a new broomstick. Alas, he'll have to tell them that later.

Jennifer Walters, the strongest of the three pack females, collects Harry on her back, and hauls him back to his den. Scarlet Witch is going to love this...as much as Harry won't.


	16. Chapter 16

Crookshanks has gotten old...and very fat. He's not the spring kneazel he once was, when his master was still a nerdy Hogwarts student...

Over and behind him, a fire burns in the grate. Atop the mantelpiece, a clock ticks. The hands are almost in place...

Another clock sits on a higher pedestal. It's got a hand that says RON, and another that says HERMIONE. The RON hand is on HOME, and the HERMIONE hand is on WORK.

Over the mantelpiece, a portrait of Ron and Hermione, on their wedding day, hangs. Hermione's in a slutty wedding dress; there's nothing wizarding about it. Ron's dress robes are a bit more honorable; not the moth-eaten ancient job that he once wore to the Yule Ball with Padma Patil…

In the cellar, the Hall of Dark Wizards is on display. Ron's stuffed and mounted the heads of dark wizards that, as an auror, he's had to kill to subdue. There's Dolohov's head, and Rowle's head, and Crabbe's head, and Goyle's head, and McNair's head, and Nott's head, and Rookwood's head, and the heads of both the LeStrange brothers. Ron once murdered Rabastian as the latter was trying to become an animagus; a crab, of all Muggle creatures... Ron figured that if he caught any dark wizard trying to become an Animagus, it'd be Rowle; he sure was animalistic in a way that made all other dark wizards look like humans...and Bellatrix look like his twin sister.

As macabre as this seems, Hermione just hates it when Ron hunts Muggle wildlife. Especially otters... Especially otters, with Jack Russell terriers as otterhounds...

Speaking of whom, before getting attacked by Greyback, Ron's brother George managed to reconstitute Bellatrix's uterus, after their mother blew it to bits during the Battle of Hogwarts. Ron now uses Bellatrix's tanned uterus as a wineskin when he's doing field work as an auror. Hermione's told him, countless times, to not do that. Ron only mocks her, and reminds her that she has an awful lot of sympathy for a dark witch who once tortured her, and carved the word MUDBLOOD into her arm...

Bellatrix's Fallopian tube openings are fused together; Ron drinks his pumpkin juice from her cervix. As you can imagine, Hermione should be VERY jealous, when Ron does this; he drinks pumpkin juice from Bellatrix's cervix, and half the time, she can't even get Ron to lap her own regal truffle butter.

Personally, George still owns Bellatrix's bladder. HE uses her tanned bladder as a wineskin when he's not a wolf. Angelina's told him not to, as have many of his other pack females... But some tricksters just never evolve...even if they don't ever get over their twin brothers' deaths in battle.

Back upstairs, the flames in the fireplace turn green. Crookshanks grumbles, and crawls out of the way, just as his master's shoe comes down near his tail...

Minister Granger is now back from work. Behind her, as she finishes stepping through, the grate's flames die a bit, and turn back into their usual red color.

Hermione's now the Minister of Magic, after having been Head of the Department of Magical Creatures for a time. She's one of those rare Ministers who WASN'T Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement before becoming Minister. It's just as well; Law Enforcement's the biggest department within the Ministry, and Magical Creatures is the second biggest.

Ron teleports into view, wearing his aurors' robes. He wears a sash around them; Bellatrix's pumpkin juice-filled uterus hangs from it.

Ron and Hermione embrace one another, romantically. Deviously, Hermione pries Bellatrix's uterus from Ron's sash, and tosses it. Pigwidgeon flies by, catches it in midair, and flies off with it.

Ron wasn't at work; he was scouting, for the next hunt. Hermione only permits this as a once-a-year activity. Even so, she hates it when Ron hunts. Muggle or magical, she just can't stand to watch wildlife get killed.

In the royal chambers of the Minister's Castle, Ron and Hermione make sweet love, atop red and gold bedding. Their comforter is patterned with pictures of Jack Russell terriers chasing otters. All around the bed, lit candles levitate. They smell like strawberry and butterscotch, depending on what color they are.

In the sitting room, Crookshanks still sleeps...and purrs at the same time. He's just about too old to get excited...

Crookshanks is so tired and poor-sighted, that he hasn't bothered to notice that this is the first time he's ever slept on this rug. The rug is very exotic, in nature...and very crimson in color...

Slowly, like a magic carpet, the Crimson Cowl ascends. Crookshanks continues to sleep...as if he can't tell he's about to be cat-napped while catnapping.

Levitating, Enchantress appears, near the Cowl. She surrounds both herself and the Cowl in one of her green-glowing force fields. Via this, she teleports out of the Minister's Castle. The Masters have successfully cat-napped the Minister's cat...whether the Minister would stand for that, or not.


	17. Chapter 17

Victorious, Badilino drives down a blacktop highway, on a hellfire-powered motorcycle. All around him, the forests and plains of Old Germany surround the highway.

He's got a sidecar. Inside, Crookshanks is now a captive. And he is NOT adapting well to it.

Badilino glances at the cat, and grins. He turns on the radio. It plays Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby."

Here, he takes the cat out of the cage. Hands off the handlebars, he juggles Crookshanks, while the latter is bound in a netted bag. He serves him, leans back, and launches the cat into the air, with his noggin. (Don't worry; his Spirit of Vengeance is VERY dormant...)

Lightmaster catches the cat, and plays hot potato with him...with herself. The cat yowls, each time her light singes him.

She pitches him across the sky. Griffin flies around, bopping the cat with his head, ass, paws, and spiked tail. The cat yowls, every time the tail hits him.

Enchantress freezes the cat's momentum, surrounds him in a force field, and rotates him, as if he were a disco ball. Briefly, she creates an illusion...where the cat IS a disco ball, and the Masters are all dressed like club dancers.

Crimson Cowl uses his Cowl like a trampoline, catapulting the cat here and there...playing catch with Griffin and Lightmaster. Oh my, this is fun...!

Riding a motorcycle, and using a pair of nunchuks and a mace, Black Knight participates in the game of "juggle the cat" that's going around. Alas, she finds that the mace makes for a more reliable softball bat...although that's not to say that the nunchuks don't have their charm. At least she wears her helmet while doing this...reducing the chance that she'll knock herself out with the nunchuks, while swinging them around.

Onward, the Masters drive/fly. Playing catch with a cat in a netted bag is SO much fun...ESPECIALLY if it's the Minister's.

Minister Granger used to be such the bitch. Once, she could torture Ron Weasley for three whole days without taking so much as a breath. What the fuck happened?!


	18. Chapter 18

Sitting on a rock, George Weasley pops open Bellatrix LeStrange's tanned bladder, and drinks pumpkin juice from it. Her bladder's side is branded with the words, BELLATRIX LeSTRANGE PISSED FROM HERE.

Angelina Johnson sighs, and sits nearby. She struggles, in vain, to not notice what her pack alpha is doing, on the next rock.

"WHAT," she shouts at him, "THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?! A DARK WITCH USED TO PISS OUT OF THAT!"

George wipes his mouth, and shrugs. "So?"

Nearby, the pack females take their turns, trying to heal Harry's arrow wound. The accursed arrowhead that Bowman shot him with was very potent...

Wasp tries some nanites. Spectrum and Captain Marvel try some cosmic energy. Rogue tries absorbing the wound's power. She-Hulk tries irradiating the wound. Colleen Wing tries some Chinese medicine.

Tilda Johnson tries a nightshade remedy. Sersei tries some Eternals' medicine. Jenny Storm tries scorching the wound. Erica Drumm tries some multiversal spells. Ares tries some Olympian medicine. Autumn Soldier tries some Slavic medicine. Valkyrie tries some Asgardian medicine. Black Widow tries her own robotic spiders.

The wound is stubborn. Hydra hit Harry good...whether it meant to or not.

In another cave, some of the pack alphas talk. Hydra's most recent attack on Harry concerns them...not in the least because he's contracted a wound that not even Remus has the skill to heal.

"Pansy says she thinks the Castle Schwartz is their HQ," Neville tells them. "It just might be time to storm it."

"I'd rather not," Percy, now a stoat, protests. It seems his ego wasn't a good match for wolfity; for that reason, he now becomes a stoat when he transforms. "If we attack too soon, we'll soon be at war with not just Hydra, but the Black family, too."

"At this point in the war," Ernie scoffs, "it probably isn't all THAT dangerous to assume that they're one in the same..."

"Cho Chang knows a really bad-arse counter-curse," Justin offers. "Not entirely sure, but it might be potent enough to counter the curse to Harry's leg."

"She lives in the Castle Schwartz now," Wayne Hopkins reminds them. "Without Harry's Legilimency or the reliability of owl post or Floo powder, we'd have to storm the castle."

Dean sighs. "Now we're going to war with the Blacks for sure..."

"We can try it the stealthy way," Remus suggests. "But yes, assuming that fails, and I reckon it will, we will be at war with Hydra AND the Blacks."

With that, Ernie sighs. "Who gets to give the order?"

In the other cave, a she-wolf howls. A few stay to attend to Harry...but most of them share the howl, and swarm out of the cave in a flash. Below, all the pack alphas perk their ears; wolf and human. The pack alpha wolves wag their wolf tails, as it appears, by the direction in which the females' howls travel, that they're on an offensive against the Castle Schwartz.

Dean shrugs, and smiles. "Sounds like it's been given!"

"Forking Natalie Grey," Percy mutters. "Why can't she just stick to time travel?"

"You can say fuck, Percy," Lee, now a fox, smiles. "We were raised by wolves, you know."

"I wasn't," Percy still mutters. "I was raised by a Prewett...and a Weasley."

They all shrug. "As good as."

Percy only sighs, and shakes his little stoat head.


	19. Chapter 19

Disappointed, Ms. Sablinova packs her bags. She sure brought a lot of them over here, from Symkaria...out of blind ambition.

Black, Zwart, and Schwarz, her three former hosts, come to see her out. They've all grown very fond of her. Ms. Sablinova wouldn't mind staying longer, just to get to know them better. It's just as well that she doesn't. Too bad she doesn't know the Black, Zwart, and Schwarz wizarding families like Old Germany does.

"We hope you'll reconsider," Black says. "The werewolves here can be a bitch."

"Much of my capital got ruined," she tells them, sadly. "It won't be cheap to replace."

Nearby, an hourglass sits. Both halves have an equal amount of sand in them. The sand in one half is still. The other is animated, and thrashing to be let out.

"I'm punishing Marko," she admits, "for his failure. It's funny, though..." She holds the hourglass up to her face, and turns it over several times; its middle is locked, to where the sands can't merge. "Only half of him seems to be resisting detention..."

"We'd sure," Zwart admits, "like to have you back sometime."

"I doubt I will come back." She kisses all three of them on the cheek. "But I would love to, if I could." She looks around. "Preferably when you're not already the host of an evil army's HQ."

Schwarz scoffs. "Hydra can be demanding. But we believe in them. It's because of people like us that they do the best work they can for humanity."

She sighs. "Sometimes I'm not so sure... But if only belief cured everything."

Outside, on the castle grounds, Bowman practices archery. He's staying. After having mortally accursed Harry Potter, he's going to spend more time here. Ms. Sablinova has promised to give him his old job back, if he survives the war with the werewolves. Right now, he couldn't love his chances more.

Six pall-bearing house-elves levitate a casket, as it's loaded onto the Silver Sable International transport plane. Deathlok's inside. Fearing what the local dark wizardy will do to his corpse, Ms. Sablinova plans to offer him the decency of a more honorable funeral, somewhere in Symkaria.

Deathlok's casket has a Silver Sable International banner hanging over his casket. A Symkaria flag would be out-of-place, considering that he didn't die for Symkaria.

Ms. Sablinova has salvaged some of his biological tissue, for the purpose of proliferating future Deathloks. She's already salvaged the chassis of his prosthetic cyborg half; every last prosthetic.

With luck, her salvage chest won't get raided by Rocket Raccoon anytime soon...

The High Council of Hydra comes outside, to bid Ms. Sablinova farewell. Most of them apologize for her reluctance to see this through.

"I wish I could," she says. "And as much as I love your cause, I love my company more. My assets took a very big hit, when Harry Potter destroyed my wolves. It's going to take at least a year to replace everything he's trashed."

Lascombe, Fennhoff, Shishido, Whitehall, Fisk, Manfredi, and Zola are all sad to see Ms. Sablinova go. Sinclair, DeFontaine, Vermis, Richter, and Sarkissian don't mind so much, though. They sure wish their High Council brethren would stop hitting on Ms. Sablinova so much...

Fisk tells her that if she's ever in Hell's Kitchen, he'll see to it that his domestics give her a royal welcome. She deserves it, after all, for all the work she puts into Silver Sable International. The Fisk family allegedly knows what that's like. They're one of Hell's Kitchen's richest families...if not THE richest...

"I'd hate to arouse the Daredevil or the Spider-Man," she laments, "but I'll do what I can...Richard."

She kisses him. With that, she flaps her blonde hair, and boards her plane.

From an arched tower window, Rüdiger watches Ms. Sablinova leave. His arms are crossed. He's not happy about this. He really thinks he should kill Ms. Sablinova, for trying to leave. But he, like Fisk, thinks she's just too pretty to waste.

And so, the last of the Silver Sable International assets leave the grounds of the Castle Schwarz...leaving only Bowman behind. Alas, Rüdiger looks down upon Bowman, still practicing his archery, and smiles. At least Ms. Sablinova hasn't left Hydra empty-handed. FAR from it...


	20. Chapter 20

These are the dark woods, just north of the Castle Schwarz. These can be dangerous woodlands at night.

A creek runs through it. With time, it's eroded a gorge. It flows a lot. Downstream, it powers a lot of Muggle water mills...

On either side of the creek, Black, Zwart, and Schwarz teleport onto either side of the creek. Black and Schwarz are clad in green robes; Zwart's in a blue one.

One at a time, other neighboring pureblood wizards teleport on either side of the creek, among Black, Schwarz, and Zwart. All in all, seven wear green robes, and seven wear blue ones. They're the Avery twins, Flint, Slughorn, Rowle, Greengrass, Crouch, the Carrow twins, Bulstrode, and Abbott.

Besides Schwarz and Black, the elder Carrow, the younger Avery, Slughorn, Abbott, and Bulstrode all wear green robes. All the others wear blue ones.

They stand on either side of the creek, glaring at each other. Tonight, they're here to settle a score...

"There's only so much room in Old Germany," Schwarz shouts across the creek, "for pureblood wizarding families! We're a national treasure. If there are too many of us, our treasure will lose its value!"

"Fuck you all," Rowle yells. "The whole damn world needs silver, diamonds, and emeralds. The whole world needs to be more like us. Otherwise, who are we to the wizarding world if we can't overbreed, and outcompete all the Muggles and Mudbloods and half-breeds?"

"If that's truly your answer," Schwarz shouts, "then in retaliation, we must do what's necessary. If we can't settle this like wizards...we might as well settle this like basilisks and raptors!"

"So be it," Rowle shouts. "It will be as it is in chess. White will move first...and then...WE'RE AT FUCKING WAR!"

"_HOOYAH_," the green robes shout.

"_HOOAH_," the blue robes shout.

With a flick of their wrists, they all summon their broomsticks, one by one. All of the green robes fly Njordstrom Silver broomsticks; the blue robes fly Coelus Bronze ones.

Icily, they both stare at each other. This is going to be a bloodbath; they can both tell.

Rowle breaks the ice, by holding up a Quaffle. Next, he beams. "Let's play!"

With that, he throws the big ball into the air. From the ground, the fourteen wizards take to the sky. A Chaser takes possession of the Quaffle, and leads the charge onto a nearby Quidditch pitch.

In each end zone of the pitch, three rings stand, atop tall poles. At one end, the poles are silver. At the other, the poles are bronze.

The green-robed team calls themselves the Basilisks. The blue-robed team are the Raptors. They play like hornets, dogfighting one another for possession of the Quaffle. The Keepers hover here and there, between the hoops, daring one of the Chasers to try to take a shot...

Abbott plays keeper for the Basilisks; Crouch plays the same position for the Raptors. Both are extremely prejudiced against the Quaffle; they prove it, each time the block a hoop. As usual, Abbott seems more gifted at doing so than Crouch.

This fight is intense. They could go on all night, like this. And BAT'S the way (uh-huh, uh-huh!) they like it...

In the boxes, the High Council of Hydra watches the match. Very seldom, to Muggles ever get to witness a Quidditch match in action.

Fennhoff seems fascinated, by how the process works. He's sure like to know how to get his victims to hallucinate something like this...

Manfredi seems obsessed with the aerodynamics of the game. His obsession seems to run in the family; he's already got a son who's obsessed with bats.

Vermis seems fascinated. She almost wants to put on her Spider-Woman suit, and throw the Quaffle around with them...

Shishido grins, as he's almost tempted to stare one of those players in the face, and watch them fall off their brooms like rocks... Alas, he manages to resist that urge, somehow...

He does petrify one Beater, though, before the match ends. (The Beater was one of the Raptors...)

Lascombe smiles, as he imagines Tactical Force and Hammer playing in this game. Neither one of them would need broomsticks... But then, with that said, they'd both have an unfair advantage... So, instead, he imagines a Quidditch team starring the Tactical Forces and the Hammers; seven replicas of Tactical Force vs. seven replicas of Hammer, that is...

Sinclair seems fascinated. This is almost enough to inspire her to go back to broomstick-flying, in her own Sight sorcery...

All Zola does is analyze the scientific minutae of the game; airspeed of the brooms, angles of their travel relative to one another and the balls, etc. There's lots of geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and physics in this game...whether the two teams want there to be or not.

Rüdiger stands and applauds, each time one of the Beaters knocks an opposing player off his broom. Now THAT'S what Hydra Supreme calls sportsmanship...

Fisk has already gone around, collecting bets on both teams. It seems that most of them are betting on the Basilisks...

Tonight, they leave the Castle Schwarz unattended...hosts and all. At least the lady of the castle is still there to man the battlements on the wall...if she's even good for that sort of thing.


	21. Chapter 21

It's a serene forest...prior to daybreak. All the plants appear either dark blue, dark purple, or deep bronze in the low light.

Here and there, fireflies blink. Their lights stay on nice and long...

White unicorns wander freely in the pastures, in a dreamy state. High above them, the stars shine bright like diamonds...

Here and there, witches run around, letting the grass caress their bare feet. They leap around in the pastures, spinning as they go.

The waters sing, as they flow over rocks in the creeks. In the background, TGC and Embody sings "Dreamers."

Trapped in a serene illusion, Cho Chang and her neighbor witches dance around in here. Some of them sing along with TGC. And in this illusion, everyone can sing. Their voices can only aid the pleasantries.

They don't seem to know or care that most of their husbands are playing Quidditch with each other, or that Cho's home has been invaded by Hydra. They also don't seem to be missing Pansy Parkinson.

Cho and Sue Li latch hands, and spin in circles, like dancing Chinese-Britons. They're as charming as twins...albeit not the same.

Not too far away, Parvati and Padma Patil do the same thing. Parvati wears deep red, and her sister wears deep blue-purple.

Isobel MacDougal surfaces from a pool, with a brown stone ring around it, and whips some water around with her long flowing ginger hair. She gasps and spreads her arms, in an irrigated and serene state...

Mandy Brockelhurst smiles, and caresses a soft white rabbit in her arms. That fur feels so smooth against her own skin...

Lisa Turpin runs beneath the sky, arms spread, with the wind blowing her blue dress around. She's a blonde...like Thor. Her hair is long and flowing.

Luna Lovegood runs across a pasture, trailing the floating stalks of dirigible plants as she goes along. She's barefoot. Even in a pleasant illusion, her shoes STILL go missing...

Daphne Greengrass runs across a field of deep green grass. In the background, a silver sky hovers. Her eyes are closed. Her blonde straight hair trails her head.

Parvati breaks away from her sister, and starts spinning farther and farther away. She spins into a vale, surrounded by trees. More fireflies stay lit all around her... The air smells more of honey and dry oak wood than it did before...

She chest-butts with a boy, and gasps, looking up into his Hufflepuff-ragged expression, looking down upon her. She tries to cover her inflating boobs, when she sees it's Justin Finch-Fletchley, the Muggle-born.

"Justin!" She fixes her hair. "What are you doing here?! I thought Greyback got to you!"

"He did. That's not why I'm here. My friend is hurt. Only Cho Chang can save her. Let her now. Our pack females are coming to invade her castle. She's coming with us; her and her wand."

"I'll try, but... I don't think her husband will let her leave the castle."

"Don't worry about them. Our pack females should take very good care of them." He looks over her shoulder. "With luck, Cho won't cry for her husband if we have to kill him."

"He's...out playing Quidditch with a lot of neighbors." She adjusts her top. "I've missed you. I know you're a wolf, but... You never come to see me."

He shrugs. "I never want to put you in danger." He looks around. "Anyway, I've got to go. Our pack females are on their way. Do your part to make sure they get in, get Cho, and get out."

"But Justin, I..."

Justin blinks, and vanishes. Parvati laments, and looks around...

Alas, her sister comes back around, locks arms with her, and dances with her more. Sometimes Parvati wishes the Sorting Hat never sorted her twin sister into Ravenclaw. She means, seriously; twin siblings in different houses?! How often does THAT happen?!

She was also jealous of her sister, when she became a prefect when she didn't. But then, Parvati sure can't blame haughty Hermione for becoming the Gryffindor prefect instead. And now that bitch is the fucking Minister of Magic, living the high life with a ring around Ron Weasley's finger...

But it's just as well. Padma's still getting over the bad time Ron once showed her at the Yule Ball. She still doesn't know that Ron only went with her because he couldn't go with Fleur Delacour...as irrational as that seemed, at the time...


	22. Chapter 22

Outside the walls of the Castle Schwarz, all is calm. For the time being, its guard couldn't be more down...with the exceptions of its walls, its doors, the hyenas, and whatever protective spells any intruder risks the wrath of by breaking and entering.

Within the castle windows, blue and green lights flash. The castle witches are still mesmerized by their shared illusion...

On the grounds, Bowman still practices his archery. He sure doesn't seem to prioritize bedtime...

The pack is just outside the walls. It's time to deploy the scouts.

Yelena Belanova goes over. She creeps over to the sleeping hyenas, and stuns them with some of her Black Widow stun weapons...just as they're about to wake, and perceive her newfound scent.

Don't get excited; Yelena hasn't dressed to woo a man. It'd be pointless; she's been told there are no men on this mission.

Alas, she sees Bowman, practicing his archery, and slows. At this, she can't help but feel some sense of attraction...

She can't, though. If not for that man, her pack alpha wouldn't be dying. As much as she hated male leaders back in the Red Room, she remembers that Harry's a good leader; one that makes the men in the Red Room look like actual devils, if she dares say so. So, she does this for Harry...if not for herself.

Erica Drumm levitates downward, and sets herself down just behind Bowman. She tries to stay calm, and starts warping the rogue archer's subconscious... She also deludes him, to where he won't see her if he looks her way.

He mis-fires an arrow, while stooping. He tries to run to a battlement, but ends up falling over before he gets there.

Perfect; Erica simply puts a long-term hex on him, and goes about her role in the invasion. She also changes into a black-furred wolf; that spell took a lot out of her.

Tilda Johnson sneaks in, and takes Bowman's quiver and utility belt. She's not sure where he keeps his other effects. Even so, she's interested in brewing an antidote to the arrowhead, in case Cho's counter-curse doesn't work. So, she makes it a point to join the home-invading party, once they get started...

Sharon Carter finds a way in. With a silenced shotgun, she breaches the door. Alas, it re-conjures himself. She scoffs; fucking magic...

Jenny Argyra comes along, with her Spartan helmet, spear, and shield. She breaches the door with just one kick...leaving magical scars while doing so. She shrugs, scoffs, and zips inside.

Sharon only scoffs. "Showoff," she mutters, following her inside.

Sersi teleports into one of the dungeons, and prowls around, using her telepathy to cloak herself. She nearly suffocates, when she first arrives. This dungeon sure has got a lot of potions brewing. And they all seem to be brewing themselves...

Patsy Walker's on the roof, now. She prowls around, for a way in...

Here, Natalie Grey goes on a little trip through time. In the past, she sneaks around, and sabotages whatever she can about the Castle Schwarz to make invading it more convenient for the pack. Once she's done, she time-travels back to the future. To the rest of the pack females, it's as if she was only gone for five seconds.

When Sersi teleports in, she brings Medusa with her. The latter uses her long red hair as limbs, while helping Sersi burglarize the castle.

Knowing Bowman better, Kate Bishop imagines how she'd store her equipment...and then how she'd store her equipment if she were Bowman. Once she's figured that out, she helps Nightshade out, searching for the dark magic he used to mortally curse Harry.

Janet Van Dyne shrinks, and flies. She finds the vents in the towers, and flies into their ducts. She finds another vent inside, flies through it, and joins Medusa and Sersi inside.

Becoming intangible, Helen Cho phases through the wall, the ground, the castle walls, and the castle floors to join Sersi, Medusa, and Wasp inside. Once inside, she shapeshifts back into a Chinese chick.

Emily Guerrero stays outside, with the hyenas, in case they wake. Her Inhuman power will protect the pack, if they wake. This...would also be a good opportunity for Synapse to find out, for herself, the perks of being an alpha female hyena...if there are any...

Brunnhilde lands on the castle grounds, aback Aragorn, her flying horse. She dismounts, and runs around, looking for a way in.

Wearing a black mask over her lower face, Bruna Bekvilatov goes over the wall. Her metal arm gleams in the moonlight, as she follows Ares and 13 through their hole. Valkyrie later finds this, and follows him in.

With perfect balance, Bobbi Morse transcends the wall. She takes her bo staff apart, as she runs across the grounds. She follows Valkyrie through Ares's hole.

Generating excess absorbed energy, Anne Marie descends to the front facade, her strawberry blonde hair flowing all around her head. She lands, concentrates, finds the magical currents that surround this castle, and begins absorbing them.

For her, there sure is a lot of security here. She may risk generating too much light, if there's too much magic to absorb...

The scouts have been deployed. With luck, they'll be all who's needed...

Alas, luck is soon robbed of them, by an approaching convoy. Outside the wall, the remaining females surround the road to the gate, to address the oncoming threat...

It's the Masters of Evil. They're back. And they've got the Minister's cat.

Now, the recon division of the pack is up the Rhine without a paddle. Even so, the remaining pack alphas stay behind, and stealthily congregate around the convoy...prepared to go berserk, if their entrance into the castle poses a threat to their sisters, now trapped inside...with the exceptions of Sersi and Sister Voodoo, who can teleport out whenever they'd like.

On the front porch, Rogue still absorbs the castle's protective enchantments. With her senses heightened, she hears the approaching convoy. As much as she hates to do double duty, she must. She generates ultra-bright light, while absorbing the house's protective enchantments. With luck, the Masters won't exhaust her reserves, by taking too long to decide what to do next...

To her relief, they don't. Mistaking Rogue's brightness for a porch light, they circle the castle, and look for a back way in. With luck, they won't discover the one Ares breached.

Inside, Sersi stops, when she senses the Masters coming. She knows about the way Ares breached. For that, she uses her telepathy to dupe the Masters into thinking the breached way in isn't there.

It works. They all pass right by it, without heeding it, or even smelling it. Enchantress, the master of magic, doesn't even notice that there's a telepath in her head. Nor does Vengeance, who has a heightened sense of fear. It's flattering to think that an errand boy of the devil is so scary, he can't even sense the repressed fears of a werewolf invasion...

But now, Sersi must send a telepathic message to everyone inside. The Masters are back. If the job was hard before, it just got harder.

By now, the entire recon division is inside. Before any of them get a chance to contact Cho, they all find places to hide...mere moments before the Masters' presence becomes a threat to the welfare of this invasion.


	23. Chapter 23

Throughout the Castle Schwarz, the invading werewolf pack hides. In the lounge, Cho Chang and her girlfriends lie on rugs on the floor, sharing a very pleasant illusion...

The backdoor opens. All the pack females listen, as the Masters' steps approach. Vengeance's, they know they hear...

Badilino stops, and looks around. With every noise-making step, he makes his way down to the dungeons...where the she-wolves hide behind many cauldrons of self-brewing potions.

He stands among the cauldrons. He looks here and there. His head isn't on fire...but it might as well be. The she-wolves are in big trouble, if he takes that bony chain off his neck anytime soon... But then, they could PROBABLY fend for themselves...

Behind a pillar, Ares tries to stay quiet. It's hard to stay hidden when you're wearing a plumed helmet, carrying a very long spear, and toting a round metal shield...and when you're an Olympian in general...

Agent 13 doesn't struggle to hide much. She's under one of the cauldrons. You'd think hiding would come easy for her. Alas, she's still a woman...and hence, takes to fear like rocks take to gravity when they're dropped from airplanes.

Under other cauldrons and behind other pillars, Black Widow, Cable, Nightshade, Valkyrie, Autumn Soldier, and Mockingbird also hide. As much as they'd hate to blow their cover, they're all prepared to ambush Vengeance, or avenge one another, if he gets so much as a flicker luckier than he is now...

Sersi's hiding behind an armchair in the lounge. She's so close to Cho...and yet, so far away. Above, here and there, Crimson Cowl's cowl flies around, like a magic carpet. God, Sersi sure hopes it doesn't spot any of them... But even if it did, how would it sound the alarm?

The Masters, although intimidating, sure seem to be a voiceless lot...

Risking everything, Sersi closes her eyes, and taps into the witches' shared illusion. It takes her a while to wedge herself completely inside...

At last, Sersi's in the same illusory forest as they are. There's a bronze dawn, just breaking the eastern sky. The trees and grass are tainted with a blue hue, where the grass would usually be.

Some of the grass is green. Most of the flowers are either white or blue. Some of the greenery is bronze.

House and new age music plays in the backdrop...from invisible sources. It lends a serene mood to this illusion...

Sersi looks around. She's clad in blue and bronze...rather like most of the witches here...save Parvati and Daphne. Parvati's in maroon and gold, and Daphne's in dark green and silver.

A silver serpent slithers near where Daphne's feet are...although it seems harmless enough. A litter of golden kittens stumbles around where Parvati's feet are; like furry gold nuggets. Daphne had better keep her snake away from Parvati. Rumor has it that Parvati's boggart becomes a king cobra, when she faces it...and it does mean basilisk-size...

Parvati's not muggle-born; but that's irrelevant.

Sersi turns around...and finds herself staring at herself. She looks around, expecting to see the fringes of a mirror. Across from her, her mirror double does, too...in all the opposite directions. Alas, there ARE no mirror fringes...

"What," she asks herself, "are you doing here?!"

"I," Sersi stammers, "was just asking myself that same question...literally, it seems..."

"Why...is this happening? Don't get me wrong; I've always wanted a twin, I just thought that... I thought that my dream twin would be more accommodating than...how confused you seem."

"Wait... YOU have a dream twin?! You mean... You're not me?"

"Wait... You're not me?!"

"I'm...Sersi, I... I need to talk to Cho."

Cho levitates abroad, descends, and lands near the two of them. "What's going on?" She looks back and forth, between the two Chinese-looking chicks. "And...which one of you is...Sue?"

Sue waves her arm. "I'M Sue. This imposter has just asked for you."

Sersi giggles, nervously. "Someone screwed up. They hired the same actress to play me and Sue Li!"

Sue winks, abashedly. "I'll...leave you two alone to talk." With that, Sue vanishes.

Cho fixes her hair, and faces Sersi. "Sorry about the casting glitch," she apologizes to Sersi. "I suppose the next thing we know, Dr. Minerva's going to come in, crash-landing into this shared illusion in a Starforce spaceship."

"Yeah," Sersi stammers. "Starforce is a bit, um, understaffed, at the moment..."

"Now...who are you, and what can I do for you?"

Near them, a portal opens. Sister Voodoo steps through, and causes the portal to vanish behind her. She acknowledges Cho and Sersi. "Ah," she smiles, brushing her head with her hands. "Looks like I got in here just in time."

"How are we," Sersi asks her, "on cover?"

"We're still good," she says. "We won't likely be for much longer, though."

Cho shakes her head. "What's going on?"

Tilda suddenly appears, in her human form, from out of nowhere...having brewed a nightshade potion to get in here. Cable appears, too, via her mutant telepathy. Vision phases into the illusion, via her tangibility-control powers. Synapse appears...still keeping the hyenas sedated. Valkyrie carves a portal into the illusion with her sword, and steps in; the portal seals itself behind her.

"Well," Cho comments, "THIS is a crowd. What's the occasion?"

"It's more of an emergency, really," Valkyrie tells her. "A man you once loved is in danger. We're werewolves...and he happens to be our pack alpha."

Cho gapes. "Harry!" She looks around. "You're...all in his pack?! Is he okay?"

"No," Nightshade responds...simultaneously, with several of the other pack females. "He's been shot...by one of Bowman's arrows. It was accursed. We've been told that you know a counter-curse for it."

"Yeah, I do, but..." She looks around. "STRIKE will be back at any minute."

"They already are," Cable warns her. "However way to end this, you need to do it now."

Cho holds up her finger. "Not necessary; I'd hate to inconvenience the other girls. There's...a spellbook I'm going to need for the incantation. I'll get it, and I'll meet you all outside the wall."

"STRIKE," Vision warns her, "might try to stop you."

"I'm not afraid of them," Cho insists. "If I was, I wouldn't have risked marrying a Black." With that, Cho levitates herself...higher and higher towards the sky. Like Jesus, she reverse-dives into a cloud, and vanishes...

Back in reality, Cho wakes...but keeps her eyes squinted, in case the Masters are watching. She cracks her eyelids, and looks around.

Above her, in the vault above the lounge, Crimson Cowl's cowl flies around, like a flying carpet. Enchantress creeps around, like a green-clad slut, caressing/enchanting things as she goes along. With her powers, Lightmaster turns on all the lights in the castle, and searches everywhere... Even so, none of them seem to suspect Cho's wariness.

Trying not to cause a scene, Cho relaxes, and teleports to the room where the spellbook is in. Once there, she lights the room with a verbal chant, and browses a bookshelf for the book...

Hellcat, Hawkeye, and Medusa are hiding here. They come out of hiding. "Cho," Patsy says, "thank god! We've got to get you out of here..."

"I know what's going on," Cho insists. "I just need a spellbook..."

Cho nearly screams, as a bunch of red hair reaches upward, like a tentacle, and plucks the right book off the shelf. The scarlet hairy tentacle then offers the book to Cho.

Medusa raises her red brows, having lent Cho the hairy tentacle. "Is THIS," she asks, "the one you need?"

Spellbound (no pun intended), Cho takes the book slowly, and nods, in awe of Medusa's strange Inhuman talent. "Yes," she near-whispers. "Thank you, Miss..."

"Medusa. Queen Medusa... Or rather, FORMER Queen Medusa...of the Inhumans."

"You're Harry's queen," Cho near-whispers, "for sure..."

"Interesting thing to learn," a strange voice says.

All three of their hearts freeze, as they whirl, and confront who's joined them at the door...which they all foolishly left ajar.

Flapping her long gorgeous blonde hair like numerous gold chains, Amora interrupts them. She puts a hex on the window, so they can't get out that way.

Even so, Hawkeye draws an arrow. Hellcat hisses, and engages her cat claws, prepared for a catfight. Medusa breeds more hair, and keeps it at the ready...

"Who," Amora asks, "is this 'Harry,' and," she looks back and forth, between Medusa, Kate, and Patsy, "who are your three...High Council-unapproved guests?"

Cho freezes...like the Ugly Duckling seeing his reflection in the lake as an adult, for the first time. Or rather, like Natalie Portman, in Black Swan, whenever being confronted by Mila Kunis during an awkward moment... Cho hasn't got a clue what to do... OR what to say...which, to a Ravenclaw witch, is a VERY big deal...


	24. Chapter 24

Outside the Castle Schwarz, things get tense. Outside the wall, Harry Potter's pack lies in wait, hoping against hope that the rest of the pack will make it out with Ms. Chang, and whatever she needs to save their alpha.

Alas, the stealth team soon reaches the time limit...of how long they have to be detained, before the conventional team takes action. Riri Williams acknowledges this. Mila Morales acknowledges this. Black Jackal acknowledges this. Jamie Hammond acknowledges this. And finally, Carol Danvers acknowledges this.

Like water over a wall, they leap over it. They take aim for the castle...and circle it, looking for a way in. They've been ordered not to leave any permanent ways in, unless there aren't any human ones to be found.

Alas, they're soon cut off...by Griffin. He lands before them, spreads his wings, stomps, and shrieks.

The pack surrounds him. They snarl, and bark.

Alas, Griffin's brought company. Black Knight arrives, draws her sword, and poses with her shield out.

Levitating, Lightmaster arrives. She's not very bright now...but she threatens to blind all of them, if they play too rough.

And now, the defensive is on. The Masters might not yet understand what they're defending...but for the pack's sake, they'd better pray they all remain ignorant...from their omegas to their alphas.

Back in the dungeons, Vengeance comes back downstairs. The stealth team is still in hiding. They're prepared to leap out and start fighting, if they have to. Sadly for the more peaceful of their number...they'll have to.

First, Vengeance's head catches fire...and his head transforms into a flaming skull. He's brought a chain. It's coiled in his hand. He unfurls it, imbues it with hellfire, and slashes it about.

It's official now; the stealth team abandons their concealment, and goes on the offensive. A fiery and fierce fight ensues. And initially, at least, they'll have to do it all around potentially dangerous bubbling cauldrons of potions.

On the upside, Cho Chang has escaped...with insurance from a house-elf. Cho doesn't know, for a fact, that her husband and his friends have put anti-teleportation charms around the castle...but just in case they have, Cho used the house-elf to guarantee her passage out of the castle, in case they had. House-elves, despite their subordinate status to wizards, are magically stronger than their masters.

On the downside, her convoy hasn't. Enchantress has captured them. She's rounded up everyone who's given themselves away, and surrounded them in green-tainted force fields. MOST of Enchantress's spells are green-tainted...

Up in the vaults, the Crimson Cowl's cowl flies around, on patrol. The Cowl returns to its master, and reveals that Vengeance has began a defensive in the potions dungeon.

She's got Brunnhilde, Helen Cho, Janet Van Dyne, Kate Bishop, Medusa, Patsy Walker, Sharon Carter, and Yelena Belanova all trapped in green-tainted force fields. These are just the ones she's sniffed out.

"Many of you, I know," Enchantress tells them. "We've fought. I've even, on occasion, aligned myself with a few of you," she flaps her long blonde hair, "temporarily."

Within her force field, Brunnhilde sighs, and shakes her head.

"What I don't quite understand is how the witch Cho Chang, an Asian-Briton half-blood witch married into the pureblood Schwarz, Zwart, and Black families...could mean so much to you. I know, for a fact, that Ms. Chang is gifted in charms, but... To you, that could mean anything."

Nobody talks. They don't dare.

"Or perhaps," a sinister and glowing look enters Enchantress's face. None of the pack females like it. "Perhaps it isn't so much her TALENT that you've come for, as it is her HEART..."

She studies them. Nobody dares budge.

"Some of you might be lesbians. And if you are, you don't have to tell me. I, of all villainesses, understand the importance of keeping one's sexuality a secret..." She whirls, and rushes between them. "But then...just because there's no man among you, doesn't mean you're not doing this FOR a man..."

Again, nobody moves...or speaks.

She scoffs. "I admire you all. I really do. Odds are, you have feelings for this man yourself...and yet, you give him what he asks for, and take whatever crap that entails...regardless of how much your pussies throb for his company... I know the feeling. I knew Thor Odinson back when he was a boy. Every day, he'd ask me for help. Most of these favors had to do with that annoying Lady Sif...that annoying little friend of his, who wanted to revolt against the perfect caste system we had, back on Asgard, by rising above the traditional ásynja's duties, and becoming a warrior...something that, until Sif came along, was strictly meant for our æsir...

"Anyway, for years, I helped him helped her. At first, I thought he was doing it because he was having a crush on me, and had plans to enslave me as his bride and maid. O, how wonderful that would've been... He would've BDSMed me all day, and I would've sucked up to him as his gorgeous, blonde, green-clad little feminine pet..."

Hearing this out, Patsy can't help but make a disgusted face.

"It wasn't until much later," the Enchantress continues her story, "that I realized that he wasn't just TRADING with Sif." She sighs. "He was COURTING her. My doom was upon me the whole damn time, and yet... I was too much of a bimbo to see it. And yes, I know that that epiphany doesn't change the fact that I helped Thor court another woman for years, without once thinking for myself. Even so, I was unaware of my enslavement, and just as unaware that his heart wasn't mine."

She turns, and faces them again. "YOU, however, seem VERY knowing in your enslavement." She looks around. "Some of you are wolves. Who is he? Your alpha? A beta?" She flaps her hair, and adjusts her green top. "A rival pack's alpha, that you're having an affair with, perhaps?"

Some of them snicker, helplessly. Helen and Medusa don't.

Again, Enchantress faces them, and starts slinking away. "I can't say that Ms. Chang is my blood sister. But being stationed in her home, at times, has taught me a few things about her. I know that she's an Asian-Briton witch. I know that only one of her parents is magical...and that whoever they are, they're a Ministry employee. I know that she was in Ravenclaw House, at Hogwarts...at that Ravenclaw corresponds to the element air, in the classical four-element system."

At this, Kate snickers.

"But even more steamy than all of that," Enchantress holds up a green-polished finger. "I know that during her time at Hogwarts, she only dated three boys. If I'm not mistaken, the boy she was seeing when she graduated, was a year younger than him. And I'm pretty sure, unless my memory deludes me...and it doesn't...that his name was Michael Corner."

She studies their faces. "Does that name ring any bells to you? No? Maybe? A vague one, perhaps?"

Nobody answers. Nobody dares give away the mission's dossier.

"However," Enchantress continues, "she did have one other boyfriend, while there... What was his name? Cedric...Diggory, I think?"

Again, she studies them. "Diggory? Any bells? Tenor? Bass?" She shrugs. "Golden Snitches? Swedish Shortsnouts?"

They don't dare move...or speak.

"Oh!" She raises her finger again, and laughs. "But of course! I'm forgetting her most political boyfriend of all! After all, he DID slay the darkest wizard of all time, a couple of years after she dumped him for dear Michael. Crying shame; if she'd known he was going to defeat the dreaded Lord Voldemort, she probably would've married him."

At this, Janet scoffs. "Of course she would've," she mutters.

Enchantress walks between her own force fields, looking up at them, with green-glowing eyes, and studying her eight prisoners with green-lit passion. "Harry Potter? Is HE who you're doing this for? Is he," she flaps her hair, "your alpha, by any chance? The man whose cock you probably only get to blow once a week, if you're lucky?"

At this, many of them feel like barfing.

Enchantress nods, and smirks. "He wants her back, doesn't he? Ah, how lovely! I'm almost tempted to let you go...just so you can make sure that that happy reunion becomes a reality, and goes as well as it possibly could...especially in times of such strife... Alas, the Masters of Evil have been good to me...and I'd HATE to betray them for a reason I KNOW they wouldn't understand." She studies them. "YOU know what that's like...don't you?"

They all only shake their heads, and scoff.

Down in the dungeon, the fight with Vengeance rages on. So far, Tilda Johnson and Bobbi Morse have contracted hellfire scars...

Ares, Autumn Soldier, and Rogue still fight Vengeance. At one point, Rogue catches Vengeance's hellfire chain, in midair. With her mutant power, she endeavors to absorb its energy. While doing so, she bares the fangs of a hellhound...and starts transforming into one, via the connection to Hell she now has, via Vengeance's chain.

With a flaming skull for a head, Vengeance can't make facial expressions. He does, however, lower his jaw...suggesting a gape.

Outside, the fight between the conventional pack and half the Masters is raging. The Masters seem to have an advantage.

Over by the hyena houses, Synapse still keeps the hyenas subdued. She can't help but notice that one of the Masters is a griffin. She doesn't think they've spotted her...so she seizes an opportunity. Trying to stay atop the hyenas, she whistles for Carol.

Carol sees her...and seems to understand what Emily's thinking, when she flies over, grabs Synapse's arms, flies over Griffin, and drops her onto his back. Once there, she attempts to use his powers to subdue her.

It works. Griffin lies down, and takes a nap...in the heat of a battle. Now, if only the rest of the pack can keep the other two Masters...and more of late, the hyenas, who're now on their guard again...too occupied to try to forcefully dismount Synapse.

Far away, Cho deviously teleports to the top of a battlement in the castle wall. She looks far, as the battle between Harry's pack and the three Masters rages. She hates to see them suffer like this...even if they are rival women...

Cho made it out with her spellbook. Here, she flips through it. She flips to the counter-curse she's invented; the one that can save Harry's life.

On the grounds, Bowman still practices his marksmanship...with a bow and arrow. If he's aware of the battle elsewhere, he's not showing it.

Now, Cho thinks she understands. BOWMAN'S the reason why her ex-boyfriend is in mortal peril. At this, her gaze narrows. She pulls out her wand, and teleports the spellbook away to somewhere safe, in the woods.


	25. Chapter 25

To her packmates' rescue, Erica Drumm teleports into the castle room, where Enchantress holds them captive. At long last, it looks like the two witches are going to do battle.

"I'm gonna say this nice just once, Enchantress." Drumm casts a few spells, and makes a pair of shields out of pure energy. "LET...THEM...GO."

Enchantress smiles, and sneers. "Sister Voodoo!" She generates a pair of green-glowing whips, out of pure energy. "At last, we meet again!"

"Can't say it's an honor," Sister Voodoo admits.

"Saying the same!" With that, Enchantress screams, and goes into a berserker rage...all while somehow maintaining the integrity of the force fields that're keeping Sister Voodoo's sisters captive.

With jinxes, hexes, and curses, the two witches duel. It's an intense catfight...which will become a dogfight for Sister Voodoo, if she becomes a wolf in the middle of this duel...

Back downstairs, in the potions dungeon, Rogue and Vengeance are still at it. And Rogue is becoming more and more like a hellhound, the more she holds on to that hellfire chain, that Vengeance means to use as his weapon...

Nightshade is injured...but she's brought some herbs with her. Deviously, she drops several into many of the boiling potion cauldrons. She thinks she can use these potions to her pack's advantage...

Above the duel, everyone gradually notices something that wasn't up there before. It's Natalie Grey. She's perched on a buttress, linking the vaults. She's time-travelled, and taken one of the potion cauldrons up there.

She waits for the right moment. Then, she dumps the cauldron. Vengeance screams, as he's drenched in the burning, scalding potion. Like the Wicked Witch of the West, this disintegrates him...and reduces him to a flaming puddle of hellfire.

Back on the floor, Nightshade looks around. She just now notices that one of the cauldrons is missing; one that she remembers putting herbs in.

Now a strawberry-blonde hellhound, Rogue sits on the floor, and scratches a swarm of fleas; apparently there's an infestation of them in Hell. At any moment, the others expect her to sprout two more heads...like Cerberus.

"LETS GO," Ares shouts.

Shouting, the dungeon team charges up the stairs, and out of the dungeon. Nightshade and Mockingbird nourish their respective injuries, while taking part in the exodus.

Later, a time-displaced Cable comes along, and remembers to loosen the chain on the portcullis. It falls, and shuts Vengeance's remains inside the dungeon. Cable doesn't expect the portcullis to detain her indefinitely...especially if they win, and the Masters come back later to let her out. But if it can slow him down, Cable's for it.

Outside, the fight between the pack and the three Masters rages on. Synapse still has Griffin asleep...but she's not sure how much longer she can hold this.

With Jewish berserker rage, She-Thing fights Black Knight like a beast. Alas, Lightmaster has already dimmed her vision. Even worse, the black hyenas seem to take delight in dogpiling her, just as she's getting hot.

In the sky, Lightmaster dogfights with Riri Williams. She also dogfights with Toni Ho, Storm, both of the Human Torches, Thor, War Machine, Quake, Capt. Marvel, and Pod. None of the pack females have ever seen so much light and power come from one villainess...

To make matters worse, Crimson Cowl comes outside, and backs Lightmaster up. She blinds many of the pack females, as they're in flight, and causes them to crash into towers. Once they've crashed, they transform back into wolves. This happens to Pod, Capt. Marvel, and Jenny Storm. War Machine and Quake have both been blinded by Lightmaster's light.

Back on the ground, Lucia Cage has been pinned by the black hyenas...as have She-Thing, Capt. England, Hercules, Honey Badger, EU Agent, Punisher, Elektra, Colleen Wing, and Havok. Black Knight stands victoriously, over Capt. England's pinned corpse...and looks like she's ready to run her Ebony Blade through her chest...

Like the dogs they already are, Red Wolf, Black Jackal, and Dhole all fight the black hyenas the old-fashioned way. They're all outnumbered. It's just about a stalemate, with both of them...although Black Jackal seems to be having the best luck, of the three...

Victorious, the "dungeon" faction of the stealth team comes outside. The ones who can help out. When Mila Morales and Gwen Poole see that Nightshade and Mockingbird are injured, they act as ambulances, and escort them over the wall. Mila gets Mockingbird, and Gwen gets Nightshade.

With the rage of a hellhound, Rogue charges into the fight. She leaps, pounces on the Black Knight, and knocks her helmet right off her head. Black Knight's blonde alter ego gapes up at the ferocious monster, as she prepares to send her to Hell...

She's saved, when all the black hyenas attack Rogue. Rogue fights back. Black Knight leaps up, gets her helmet back, and resumes the fight.

She resumes by coming after Synapse. Synapse sees this, and panics. Lucky for her, Storm looks down, sees what's about to happen, swoops, and saves Synapse...with moments to spare. Black Knight swipes her Ebony Blade...but misses.

Griffin wakes. He throws Black Knight off him, and shrieks again.

In a dent in the wall, into which she was thrown earlier, She-Hulk lies...in wolf form. Alas, she soon opens her eyes, when she hears the shriek. Her eyes are green...and they glow.

She leaps up, howls, and charges back into the fight. In a flash, she assumes her human shape...and turns green. She is now the big, muscular, sexualized She-Hulk.

Griffin calms...and sees her. All of a sudden, he seems less passionate than before.

"SMASH," She-Hulk shouts...right before charging Griffin. She leaps over him, misses his attempts to snap at her with his beak, and snatches his tail, while in midair. She lands, grabs it like a tow line, yells, and hauls it around. With his talons, Griffin panics, and builds furrows in the ground, as She-Hulk drags him around the castle grounds, angrily.

"MIGHTY MONSTER," She-Hulk shouts, "YOU GONNA DIE!"

In another dent in the wall, She-Rulk lies, still in wolf form. When she hears She-Hulk scream in rage, she opens her eyes. They're red...and they glow...

* * *

On Vanaheim, another battle is in progress. A team of space-faring mercs, led by Grant Ward/Hammer, fights an army of black wolves and cyborgs led by the Fenris cousins, Donald Pierce, and Friedrich von Roehm.

Just like the Mighty Thor, with blond hair and everything, Ward swings his own Uru hammer around, taking out black wolves and cyborgs in droves. They're strong and ferocious...but via berserkergang, he's MUCH more so.

In the midst of the fighting, a pair of portals open in the sky. Sister Voodoo and Enchantress fall through them, while still dueling.

The rest of the battle seems to ignore them, as the two witches fight one another. Both have managed to injure one another...but clearly not enough to win.

Around them, black wolves charge. Both inadvertently open portals back to Old Germany...where the wolves inadvertently barge right into, without being given a chance to hesitate. The portals close behind them, trapping them on Midgard.

One of these portals takes Von Roehm back to Midgard, too. Good thing that wasn't Sister Voodoo's portal that sent him there; she'd hate it, if she ever found out that her side lost because Von Roehm joined Hydra's Council, and became the single grain of rice that tipped the scale.

Nearby, Selene Gallio, a mutant witch, stops fighting for the Fenris cousins, and notices the two witches dueling. She has no idea why they are, or what they're doing on Vanaheim...but for this, she gets distracted, and enters the fight...for no apparent reason, other than the fact that she's a witch.

And so, what was once a two-way duel becomes a three-way one...although neither Enchantress nor Sister Voodoo are sure what they've got to gain from beating Selene.

On the sidelines, the mutant Sage, who's hauling injured wolves and cyborgs to safety, stops for a moment, to witness the dueling trio. She watches, until Selene creates a portal, and causes all three of them to fall through it, and continue their duel elsewhere.

At this, Sage scoffs. "And to think that most think that catfights are underrated," she mutters.

* * *

At last, the rest of the pack escapes from the Castle Schwarz. Kate Bishop shoots an arrow to a battlement. It has a cable attached to it. She hangs from the cable, while sliding on over to the battlement. Behind her, Black Widow, 13, Hellcat, and Brunnhilde follow, taking the same way as her.

Wasp shrinks, and flies away. Medusa stands, and waits until Sersei teleports into view, embraces her, and teleports back to the den.

Kate lands on the battlement, aims an arrow, and covers her teammates, as they escape by taking the stairs down to the lower level of the battlement. They all make it; only she's left.

Alas, another cable, with an arrow tied to it, latches itself to the side of the battlement. Paranoid, Kate creeps towards it...

Bowman slides down it, swings, lands on the battlement, stands, and draws an arrow of his own. Kate stands tall, while aiming her own arrow back at the Hydra bowman.

He's dressed for the part, alright; he's wearing green attire. If not for the yellow Hydra octopus across the front of his sleeveless zip-up top, he'd look like Green Arrow.

Kate acknowledges the arrowhead that Bowman uses. It's black...and while Kate can't see it, she's pretty sure there's more than just sharpness in that arrow...

"Well," Bowman sneers, "if it isn't Hawkeye's protégé! And what, may I ask, do they call you?"

"Hawkeye," she spats. "Just like my predecessor."

He scoffs. "Creative much." He glances at his arrowhead. "You know what this is, don't you? But of course you would. Your beloved predecessor reeked of its dark magic for days, right before it claimed his heart, and made him a wraith...Kate Bishop."

In her chest, Kate's heart freezes. Crap; Bowman knows her secret identity.

Back on the ground, She-Hulk holds Griffin, while She-Rulk loses control, and punches his underside to infinity. Griffin lies, thrashes, and takes this treatment...as much as he hates it.

Soon, Sister Grimm and Hercules come, and have a few rounds of their own with Griffin. Lucia Cage, Punisher, Honey Badger, Elektra, Colleen Wing, Gwenpool, and Havok do, too.

With her webbing, Mila Morales pins several of the black hyenas to the ground. As much as their numbers have grown, Mila doubts that Synapse's power is as useful against them as it was.

Like the dhole who can't stop fighting, Dhole continues to snarl, and slash away at the remaining black hyenas. The Schwarzs, Zwarts, and Blacks sure like their black hyena-staffed protection...

Sersei teleports everywhere, and acts as an ambulance, getting the wounded off the castle grounds. She does her best to respect the fight between Hawkeye and Bowman, that's happening atop a certain battlement...

With dual blades each, the two archers fight. For Hawkeye, this is about avenging her mentor and predecessor...who was once a great man named Clint Barton.

At last, Bowman pins her. He takes out one of his accursed arrows, and holds it over his enemy's heart. It gleams with malice...

"Prepare to meet your mentor in hell," Bowman sneers, "Ms. Bishop."

Kate watches helplessly, as Bowman raises the arrow to stab her into the heart with...

Hellcat sneaks up behind him, screams, and slashes his quiver off with her claws. At this, Bowman instantly spins around, and starts taking on Hellcat. As Kate would expect, she's faster than him. Alas, Kate has fought plenty of fast foes to know that sometimes, as helpless as they appear, the slowest of duelists CAN come out on top...

In a flash of a moment, that becomes necessary...as a dark red flash of light flashes all around, inside the battlement's top. Hellcat freezes. Kate gapes, and looks around.

Nearby, Cho Chang stands. Her wand is smoking...with brown smoke. Before her, Bowman staggers, and falls to the battlement floor. He lies on his back, breathes his last breaths, and looks up at his assailant...with shock and awe.

"My arrow," he barely says, "from your wand?"

Cho nods. "I know of a counter-curse that can undo your so-called 'Morgul Curse." She shrugs. "It only makes sense, that I also invent a curse to match it...right?"

"Assiatic bitch," are Bowman's last words. Above him, Hellcat, Hawkeye, and Ms. Chang gather around, as they watch the light leave Bowman's eyes.

Kate shakes Patsy's hand. "Thanks for coming back." She shakes Cho's. "Thanks for avenging my mentor."

"Grab onto my arms," Cho urges, "and I'll take us outside the walls."

They do. Cho teleports away...and does.

From the sky, Thor, Capt. Marvel, and the others dive, and extract the pack females who can't fly, via flight. Sersi arrives, and teleports away everyone who the fliers can't carry.

On the ground, Black Knight and Griffin both lie injured. Farther away, Lightmaster and Crimson Cowl have FINALLY been taken down. Alas, they'll both be back up again...soon.

Atop the battlement, the same can't be said for Bowman. From his corpse, the spirit of a wraith rises. It leaves him...as well as his bow, his quiver, and the Hydra symbol on his zip-up sleeveless top.

Outside the castle walls, the sun rises over the eastern woods. From the path leading to the front gate, many cars (mostly Bentleys) arrive...FINALLY having resolved the Quidditch game. They're all going to have a real fit, when they find out what's happened here, in their absences. Needless to say, heads will roll.

At long last, Sersi gets a chance to teleport Cho to Harry's den. He's a human again, and lies injured.

Cho only takes a moment, to behold his gorgeous body, while he's asleep and dying. She caresses his hair, and recalls all the good times she's had with him...

From out of nowhere, Wasp resizes herself to normal, scaring Cho. She takes off her helmet, snaps in her face, and points at Harry. Cho nods, gets out her spellbook, and gets to work.

In a clearing surrounded by the dawn, a whirlwind of positive spirits fly in circles, around an eye of space. They sing, and chant beautifully, as the sun rises over the eastern woods...

Within the center of the whirlwind, Harry Potter levitates, shirtless. As he sleeps, Cho, an old flame from his past, is healing him...of the Bowman's black magic. As his father once told him via the Resurrection Stone, "he's nearly there."

It's apparent, now, that Harry wears rings in his nipples, when he's human. Good thing he never rears, when he's a wolf...

For a long time, the spirits orbit him, not knowing if what they're doing is working. One thing they're all sure of, though, is that they SHOULD be working...

At last, Harry yawns and stretches...while being levitated. The spirits vanish, and Harry is gently levitated down, and laid to rest atop an altar in the clearing.

Cho sits near him, and caresses his hair, once more. "Harry," she whispers.

He grasps her hand, and smiles. He can't see...but he knows her voice when he hears it. "Cho? You saved me?"

She nods...and caresses her own face with Harry's hand. "Bowman's dead. I killed him...with the exact opposite of the magic that I've used to heal you." She adjusts her hair. "It was the same magic he used to harm you...via one of his accursed shafts."

"Thank you." He turns his head around, in many directions. "When I'm rested...I think we both have something to tell the pack."

She nods. "I do, too. But you need rest. I'll tell them. I'll tell them exactly what you were about to, before Bowman ruthlessly shot you on Silver Sable's orders."

Harry scoffs. "Is that what happened? I thought it was Hydra."

"It was...and it wasn't." She looks around. "Some of your pack females are dead. I'm sorry they had to die for me."

"With all due respect to them," Harry admits, "I'd ask them to do it again in a heartbeat."

She wipes her own tears. "I'm sorry I got married. I'm sorry I left you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah; don't dwell. Now; you have something to tell my pack?"

"Of course. Let me help you back to the den. You need rest."

With that, she helps him up, and back to the den. And now, as Harry rests from his recovery, the pack's new phase of their war against Hydra will begin...


	26. Chapter 26

This is the cold North of Sfär. Only the ambitious and hardy venture up here.

It's a taiga forest. Out here, it always feels like winter. The trees grow thick, and block out the sun. But it's just as well that they do; the taiga's grey sky never lets much light in.

Within the taiga, the land rises and falls. At its zeniths, there are peaks. At its lowest, there are lakes. On most nights, they freeze over.

Out here, the kneazel and the lynx roam free. Just as often, they're hunted.

This is one of the few men who's not hunting them. His name is Victor Creed...and he's really a mutant. He can generate claws from his hands, and fangs from his teeth. His ferocity is also a mutant power.

Out here, Creed protects the lynxes and kneazels. He also protects the snow leopards, the leopards, the tigers, the leopard cats, the Pallas's cats, the wildcats, and the jungle cats...as few of those as there are out here.

Out here, Creed's just about retired from villainy. He's living the life of his dreams, far from the Weapon X program...and most of all, far from his rival, Logan. He misses the Hand, sometimes... Alas, regardless of what anyone's said about him, Creed does not have nine lives.

* * *

It's late at night. Out there, the lake has frozen. A whistling wind blows through the forest. In the skies, a massive blue and green aurora dances around...

Up a dirt road, a blaze orange jeep takes it easy...before stopping near where the road dead-ends. It's got a kayak tied to its top.

Inside, there are hunting rifles; nothing smaller-caliber than a .30-06. The bows are all compound bows, and the smallest shotgun bore is ten-gauge. Seems shameful, that there isn't a SMAW among the arsenal's inventory...

There's a hood ornament on the front of the jeep's hood. It's either of an octopus, of a kraken, or of Hive the Inhuman. Either way, it's Hydra's symbol.

Deep in the forest, Creed sleeps in his cabin. He snores when he eats too much. And tonight, he has. Less often, he has acid reflux in his sleep. But then, there's a lot of red meat in his diet...

In the other room, a kneazel is on fire guard. With his magic, he keeps the fire stoked, and burning. Creed doesn't even have to get up and do it himself...or go outside, where all the wood is stacked.

Out here, softwood is the only kind of wood to get. It's not as durable as hardwood...but the kneazel, if not Creed, seems to know how to make it work... But then, that fire might be magical fire, and hence, have nothing to do with how hard softwoods are...

But even kneazels have to sleep sometime. And so, at about 0300, the kneazel takes it easy. And with that, the fire goes out. Its coals still glow...but its flames are dead.

Outside, the wind blows softly. Creed would enjoy this, if he wasn't always so worried about the cats' and the panthers' welfare...

Out there, a hunter in a pair of boots stalks through the woods. He's chosen an anti-mutant rifle for this hunt.

Creed opens his eyes...as the scent of a non-mutant man reaches his superhuman smell. His eyes narrow...and switch to night-vision.

From where the hunter is, one can see Creed's shack. Smoke curls from its chimney...alas, no lights glow. The hunter smiles, and takes his sweet time down the hill.

A borzoi stays at his side. The borzoi wears a green-and-yellow collar...from which an octopus-shaped pendant hangs.

The hunter doesn't knock. With a mighty kick, he breaks open the door. He reloads his weapon, and marches in.

The kneazel greets him, yowls, and hisses. Before he can cast a spell, the hunter aims, and shoots. The kneazel is no more.

The Hunter whistles for his dog. The borzoi wanders in, scoops up the dead cat in his jaws, and takes it away.

"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty," the man says, in a Slavic accent. With his rifle cocked, he searches every corner. He sees the vacant bed. Knowing his game, he stoops low, to check under the bed...

Here, Creed throws away the bedstead, revealing himself standing under it...or rather, where it was. The Hunter backs away, and keeps his rifle aimed.

"NOBODY calls me kitten," Creed snarls, "and gets away with it!" With that, he roars, flashes his claws, and charges...

From outside, a gunshot is heard. From a copse of trees, a murder of crows hears this, and flies away at the same time...cawing as they go.

Creed lies on the floor of his own shack, with a hole in his chest. The Hunter digs out a game bag, and drops it atop Creed.

The Hunter bends down, and pulls off his balaclava...revealing the face of Sergei Kravinoff. He unfolds the game bag, and starts fitting it around Creed's corpse.

"Sorry, Creed," Kravinoff says, in a Slavic accent. "But it seems that every...'kitty'...has its day." With that, he starts zipping closed the bag...with Creed's corpse inside.

As Creed's face vanishes within the zipping, Kravinoff lowers his voice. "Hail Hydra," he hisses...as he cloaks Creed's fixed pupils and pale face from sight.


End file.
